[SOLVED]Bootmgr is missing after failed windows 7 install

[l2obel2t]

I just wanted to document my ordeal here for two reasons: 1.) in order to share my experience and 2.) beacause after 36+ hours of attempting to find a solution to my problem I could NOT find one and did a few things myself to remedy and fix the situation. This experience needs to be shared in case someone else goes through this and like me, NONE of the suggested fixes work.

After a failed windows 7 install using an upgrade disc (clean install, no previous OS - this is possible with the right sequence of installation, google it). I continually recieved the error "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

There are many walkthroughs on the internet detailing how to remedy this problem BUT all of them are assuming Windows has been successfully installed and that you can repair it using the install disc and clicking "repair" when putting it into the disc drive and loading it before booting. My problem of course was that the OS was not successfully installed, therefore I had no way to access the repair options.

I removed the hard drive and put it into a working PC and it was detected; reformatted the drive, scanned it using Western Digital's (it's a WD Caviar Blue 500gb) software to check for drive health as I assumed the drive was bad. The drive was reformatted successfully and the long test revealed no issues, the drive was healthy. I put it back into the new rig, checked cables, replaced sata cords, powered on and "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

Went into BIOS and made sure boot order was correct - it was.

Used a piece of software meant to fix bootmgr issues (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-express/) - no luck.

Frustrated at this point, I went ahead and performed memtest86+ 4.21 and detected tens of thousands of errors in the ram. This narrowed it down. I replaced the ram with ram I know has no errors and booted up. "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

This is when I realized that it must be connected to the bad install and that before tossing this PC out of the window of a moving car, I should wipe the drive completely and start over, as something on the drive must be corrupted, despite the reformat and health of the drive. Using DBAN Boot and Nuke (http://www.dban.org/download) I wiped the drive completely (took 10 hours or so). I prayed this would solve my problems and guess what: IT DID! At this point after restarting after Boot and Nuke and putting in the upgrade disc and went forward with my installation NO "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart" and the install went perfectly.

Things to take away from this:
ALWAYS TEST RAM FIRST BEFORE USING
Bad ram can cause a failed installation (duh)
If you fail to install windows before the OS is installed, completely wipe the drive before attempting to start again, or if there is no other working solution for you.

I hope this helps someone out there in the future.

-robert

 

[synthaside]

Ah dban , saves the day again from nasty left over rubbish on media , ive rolled out mandatory Dban as a step in our decomissioning process . There are so many good reasons from good data handling and disposal compliance procres through to knowing you actually have a clean drive to use .

Do bear in mind that running a full gutmann wipe , ie 7 -10 passes is a serious stress on the drive , probably not a problem in a domestic machine , but doing these more than a few times on a machine at the enterprise level , you will hit you drive replacement windows much sooner than you would like.

 

[l2obel2t]

Best answer selected by l2obel2t.

 

[sdweberg]

Robert,

Your post did help someone in the future - me! I was having fits after trying to do a full install (not upgrade) of Windows 7 on a hard disk that was running Vista. After the install i had a similar problem you described, and tried all the repair installs etc etc etc - reformatted the drive etc etc. I could actually boot up ONLY IF the windows 7 install disk was in the drive - if it was, and i did not select to boot from it, then i would boot from the hard disk fine. but if the install disk was NOT in the drive, i got the BOOTMGR error. I thought about just leaving it and booting with the install disk in there every time, but that means something is very flaky about my system right? So was googling around and FINALLY found your post!

DBAN saved me. (I did the memory check first, and my memory was fine.) Then i did 2 things. I unplugged the other 2 hard disks that were in my system for added storage, and I Boot And Nuked the drive i was installing Windows 7 on. Took me about 5+ hours for a 160GB SATA drive.

After that, I booted the Windows 7 Home Premium install disk and ran thru the normal full install onto the clean drive, and IT JUST WORKED!! Then I plugged my other 2 drives back in, and they are there for extra storage just as they were with Vista. Everything is working, after 2 days of screwing with this thing!!

THANKS!!!
Scott

 

[Aizat_07]

Hi, i would like to add additional solution to this program. A more quicker and easier one that i have found while toying around to solved this problem. The step take only five minute.

The trick here is to force your computer to go into ADVANCE BOOT

1. Start your computer and go to BIOS setup. Change the order of the boot source to the one that are having your windows file to install to the first in the list. (For me, its USB/CD DVD Rom) - This will make sure that your computer will boot from the cd or usb that contains the windows 7. Save and exit

2. The computer will restart and boot. You still will be getting the 'bootmgr is missing' but the TRICK is to constantly pressing F8 right up FROM THE START OF THE RESTART.

3. 'bootmgr is missing' will still show up but keep pressing F8.The computer will then make a beep sound(in my case at least). After the beep sound, just stop pressing F8

4. The computer will the enter the advance boot option. Select the boot with logger. The computer will then take boot the computer and take you to the installation startup of your new windows. WALLAH!! and your done, just install normally and your DONE!! ))

Easy was not it? I now my solution is kinda cheecky but hey, it works!! I post it because i want to share this trouble shooting that i found by chance and save a lot of people the trouble and time to fix this problem.
I have help one of my friend with it.

LET me now if more have found my this solution work! Cheers ^^

 

[mbkfa93]

well, i had a quite similar problem after installing windows 7 upgrade, i though it was a problem with installing it form a USB drive, so i installed it from a CD that was ok before, still got the same problem. BOOTMGR IS MISING, CTRL+ALT+ DEL thing again.
luckily i had a Hiren's boot CD on a usb disk, i used boot from bootmgr from it's menu and it worked. the windows DID boot. i realized that for some reason that i don't know yet, bootmgr file was not in the c:\ directory, so i copied it from the CD and it was ok, the next i had to do is to use a software called easy bcd to delete the boot entery, install mbr to the HDD again and create a new boot entery, and it's working fine now. hope this helps anybody

 

[meanordljato]

yea it helped thanks.

i had installed win 7 on another partition same HDD as vista, but then changed the win 7 partition to the active one which gave me the bootmgr error.
here also for me hiren was the helper to boot since it can somehow boot the OS anyway, but what I did not know was what you wrote mbkfa93 that after making the win 7 part the active one i had to copy the bootmgr files and perhaps other files to make it able to boot.

thanks

 

[maestrojan]

@Aizat_07

Thanks, thanks, thanks. I was becoming desperate after a whole day of trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot after installing Win 7. Your tip worked perfectly for me.

 

[sagara-kun]

Hi, i would like to add additional solution to this program. A more quicker and easier one that i have found while toying around to solved this problem. The step take only five minute.

The trick here is to force your computer to go into ADVANCE BOOT

1. Start your computer and go to BIOS setup. Change the order of the boot source to the one that are having your windows file to install to the first in the list. (For me, its USB/CD DVD Rom) - This will make sure that your computer will boot from the cd or usb that contains the windows 7. Save and exit

2. The computer will restart and boot. You still will be getting the 'bootmgr is missing' but the TRICK is to constantly pressing F8 right up FROM THE START OF THE RESTART.

3. 'bootmgr is missing' will still show up but keep pressing F8.The computer will then make a beep sound(in my case at least). After the beep sound, just stop pressing F8

4. The computer will the enter the advance boot option. Select the boot with logger. The computer will then take boot the computer and take you to the installation startup of your new windows. WALLAH!! and your done, just install normally and your DONE!! ))

Easy was not it? I now my solution is kinda cheecky but hey, it works!! I post it because i want to share this trouble shooting that i found by chance and save a lot of people the trouble and time to fix this problem.
I have help one of my friend with it.

LET me now if more have found my this solution work! Cheers ^^

dude this solution was so obvious that it didn't cross ma mind
thnx for the info...helped me out

 

[junski26]

yes, 'Twas help... my friend in Tokyo, Japan had the same problem and I help her via Skype reformatting her computer using this F8 thing... Thank You!!

Hi, i would like to add additional solution to this program. A more quicker and easier one that i have found while toying around to solved this problem. The step take only five minute.

The trick here is to force your computer to go into ADVANCE BOOT

1. Start your computer and go to BIOS setup. Change the order of the boot source to the one that are having your windows file to install to the first in the list. (For me, its USB/CD DVD Rom) - This will make sure that your computer will boot from the cd or usb that contains the windows 7. Save and exit

2. The computer will restart and boot. You still will be getting the 'bootmgr is missing' but the TRICK is to constantly pressing F8 right up FROM THE START OF THE RESTART.

3. 'bootmgr is missing' will still show up but keep pressing F8.The computer will then make a beep sound(in my case at least). After the beep sound, just stop pressing F8

4. The computer will the enter the advance boot option. Select the boot with logger. The computer will then take boot the computer and take you to the installation startup of your new windows. WALLAH!! and your done, just install normally and your DONE!! ))

Easy was not it? I now my solution is kinda cheecky but hey, it works!! I post it because i want to share this trouble shooting that i found by chance and save a lot of people the trouble and time to fix this problem.
I have help one of my friend with it.

LET me now if more have found my this solution work! Cheers ^^

 

[carribe]

Dude, this totally worked for me!!!!! Thank you so much, you rock!

 

[rons2020]

I just wanted to document my ordeal here for two reasons: 1.) in order to share my experience and 2.) beacause after 36+ hours of attempting to find a solution to my problem I could NOT find one and did a few things myself to remedy and fix the situation. This experience needs to be shared in case someone else goes through this and like me, NONE of the suggested fixes work.

After a failed windows 7 install using an upgrade disc (clean install, no previous OS - this is possible with the right sequence of installation, google it). I continually recieved the error "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

There are many walkthroughs on the internet detailing how to remedy this problem BUT all of them are assuming Windows has been successfully installed and that you can repair it using the install disc and clicking "repair" when putting it into the disc drive and loading it before booting. My problem of course was that the OS was not successfully installed, therefore I had no way to access the repair options.

I removed the hard drive and put it into a working PC and it was detected; reformatted the drive, scanned it using Western Digital's (it's a WD Caviar Blue 500gb) software to check for drive health as I assumed the drive was bad. The drive was reformatted successfully and the long test revealed no issues, the drive was healthy. I put it back into the new rig, checked cables, replaced sata cords, powered on and "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

Went into BIOS and made sure boot order was correct - it was.

Used a piece of software meant to fix bootmgr issues (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-express/) - no luck.

Frustrated at this point, I went ahead and performed memtest86+ 4.21 and detected tens of thousands of errors in the ram. This narrowed it down. I replaced the ram with ram I know has no errors and booted up. "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

This is when I realized that it must be connected to the bad install and that before tossing this PC out of the window of a moving car, I should wipe the drive completely and start over, as something on the drive must be corrupted, despite the reformat and health of the drive. Using DBAN Boot and Nuke (http://www.dban.org/download) I wiped the drive completely (took 10 hours or so). I prayed this would solve my problems and guess what: IT DID! At this point after restarting after Boot and Nuke and putting in the upgrade disc and went forward with my installation NO "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart" and the install went perfectly.

Things to take away from this:
ALWAYS TEST RAM FIRST BEFORE USING
Bad ram can cause a failed installation (duh)
If you fail to install windows before the OS is installed, completely wipe the drive before attempting to start again, or if there is no other working solution for you.

I hope this helps someone out there in the future.

-robert

 

[rt2030]

I just wanted to document my ordeal here for two reasons: 1.) in order to share my experience and 2.) beacause after 36+ hours of attempting to find a solution to my problem I could NOT find one and did a few things myself to remedy and fix the situation. This experience needs to be shared in case someone else goes through this and like me, NONE of the suggested fixes work.

After a failed windows 7 install using an upgrade disc (clean install, no previous OS - this is possible with the right sequence of installation, google it). I continually recieved the error "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

There are many walkthroughs on the internet detailing how to remedy this problem BUT all of them are assuming Windows has been successfully installed and that you can repair it using the install disc and clicking "repair" when putting it into the disc drive and loading it before booting. My problem of course was that the OS was not successfully installed, therefore I had no way to access the repair options.

I removed the hard drive and put it into a working PC and it was detected; reformatted the drive, scanned it using Western Digital's (it's a WD Caviar Blue 500gb) software to check for drive health as I assumed the drive was bad. The drive was reformatted successfully and the long test revealed no issues, the drive was healthy. I put it back into the new rig, checked cables, replaced sata cords, powered on and "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

Went into BIOS and made sure boot order was correct - it was.

Used a piece of software meant to fix bootmgr issues (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-express/) - no luck.

Frustrated at this point, I went ahead and performed memtest86+ 4.21 and detected tens of thousands of errors in the ram. This narrowed it down. I replaced the ram with ram I know has no errors and booted up. "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart"

This is when I realized that it must be connected to the bad install and that before tossing this PC out of the window of a moving car, I should wipe the drive completely and start over, as something on the drive must be corrupted, despite the reformat and health of the drive. Using DBAN Boot and Nuke (http://www.dban.org/download) I wiped the drive completely (took 10 hours or so). I prayed this would solve my problems and guess what: IT DID! At this point after restarting after Boot and Nuke and putting in the upgrade disc and went forward with my installation NO "Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart" and the install went perfectly.

Things to take away from this:
ALWAYS TEST RAM FIRST BEFORE USING
Bad ram can cause a failed installation (duh)
If you fail to install windows before the OS is installed, completely wipe the drive before attempting to start again, or if there is no other working solution for you.

I hope this helps someone out there in the future.

-robert

Hi Robert.
How did you make the DBAN CD work. I have the same issue and the comp is not reading any cd, just goes to the loop (BOOTMGR missing, press Ctrl+Alt+Dlt to restart).

 

[Daniel Eastwood]

Hi, i would like to add additional solution to this program. A more quicker and easier one that i have found while toying around to solved this problem. The step take only five minute.

The trick here is to force your computer to go into ADVANCE BOOT

1. Start your computer and go to BIOS setup. Change the order of the boot source to the one that are having your windows file to install to the first in the list. (For me, its USB/CD DVD Rom) - This will make sure that your computer will boot from the cd or usb that contains the windows 7. Save and exit

2. The computer will restart and boot. You still will be getting the 'bootmgr is missing' but the TRICK is to constantly pressing F8 right up FROM THE START OF THE RESTART.

3. 'bootmgr is missing' will still show up but keep pressing F8.The computer will then make a beep sound(in my case at least). After the beep sound, just stop pressing F8

4. The computer will the enter the advance boot option. Select the boot with logger. The computer will then take boot the computer and take you to the installation startup of your new windows. WALLAH!! and your done, just install normally and your DONE!! ))

Easy was not it? I now my solution is kinda cheecky but hey, it works!! I post it because i want to share this trouble shooting that i found by chance and save a lot of people the trouble and time to fix this problem.
I have help one of my friend with it.

LET me now if more have found my this solution work! Cheers ^^

Bro, you're a genius! Thank you!! You just saved me so much time with your clever trick! And I have to say, I've come across this goddamn BootMGR issue so many times... From now on I will know.
Thank you!

 

[andreunz]

Thanks
but unfortunately for me did ot work
I did not have the "boot manager issue"

I just tried to make a clean install to wipe out Win 7 32 bit into Win 7 (64 bit)

I have both bootable USB ready and CD roms.

I did the memtest --> and no errors
I wiped out using Duke . IT took 7 hours for a Lenovo T61, 160 Gbytes HDD, 4 Gbyte ram...
i

Change boot sequence

- from USB I get black screen and frozen laptop
- from DVD rom says there is no operating system in the DVD rom. The same DVD goes perfectly in another laptop...
And Win7 Installation would start ok

What part of the Laptop shall I trash: the HDD, the mother board, all of it??
help pleeeeasseee!!!

 

[DrSuess]

Thank You! This worked on my problem where I did an install of Windows 7 Pro on a 64 bit workstation with Windows 7 Pro 32 bit install disk. It messed up the MBR record where the drive was hosed.

Hi, i would like to add additional solution to this program. A more quicker and easier one that i have found while toying around to solved this problem. The step take only five minute.

The trick here is to force your computer to go into ADVANCE BOOT

1. Start your computer and go to BIOS setup. Change the order of the boot source to the one that are having your windows file to install to the first in the list. (For me, its USB/CD DVD Rom) - This will make sure that your computer will boot from the cd or usb that contains the windows 7. Save and exit

2. The computer will restart and boot. You still will be getting the 'bootmgr is missing' but the TRICK is to constantly pressing F8 right up FROM THE START OF THE RESTART.

3. 'bootmgr is missing' will still show up but keep pressing F8.The computer will then make a beep sound(in my case at least). After the beep sound, just stop pressing F8

4. The computer will the enter the advance boot option. Select the boot with logger. The computer will then take boot the computer and take you to the installation startup of your new windows. WALLAH!! and your done, just install normally and your DONE!! ))

Easy was not it? I now my solution is kinda cheecky but hey, it works!! I post it because i want to share this trouble shooting that i found by chance and save a lot of people the trouble and time to fix this problem.
I have help one of my friend with it.

LET me now if more have found my this solution work! Cheers ^^