[SOLVED] "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

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Meylis Lawrence

[SOLVED] "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

Post by Meylis Lawrence »

Hi Everybody!

I know it is not directly related to linux, but I thought I should post anyway because I'm trying to install Linux Mint 15.

So here is what happened:

I've delleted all the partitions on my brother's laptop including the 200mb System partitionth through recover CD called Boot-Repair-Disk from ubuntu website. The thing is I was going to clean install Windows 7 on unallocated space as it would make a System Partition automatically.

When I restarted the laptop I got "Bootmgr is missing" "Press control alt del to restart" error. I tried to boot windows 7 repair disk, but it won't boot neither from DVD or USB. I tried the same with "Boot-Repai-Disk" software both from DVD and USB. I set Bios settings to default and repeated the entire process but no; it gives the same error ("Bootmgr is missing").

It seems that the DVD drive and USB drives are working fine because I can see they are trying to boot. It's just when they do that I get a black screen and hyphen ( - ) appearing and diasappearing till I shut down the laptop.

I would appreciate If you tell me how to get to Windows Recover Environment or command prom. The rest is easy; I would inititiate bootrec and bootsect commands to fix the problem. It would help if I could boot Linux Mint 15.

Please help me guys. I feel so embarassed, now, that I messed up my brother's laptop. He's coming home soon. :(
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
wayne128

Re: "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

Post by wayne128 »

I had this kind of thing on one computer a friend brought to me for helping.

Win7 crash after boot from Hard disk.
cannot boot from USB
cannot boot from DVD.!!


so what I did was:
open casing
unplug the cables to Hard disk and cables to DVD.

plug in a known working , bootable USB flash drive with Linux OS

it booted up and so it is OK.

Then I power down computer

add back the DVD cables
boot again, this time it can boot from DVD

so I power down and put back hard disk cable
now it still can boot from DVD and from USB

I run Live from USB, try to check hard disk, it was so corrupted that, at the end, I decided to reformat the whole hard disk, reinstall Win7 and since then it has been working quite well in Win7..
thought it might help you to try out. no guaranteed :mrgreen:
Meylis Lawrence

Re: "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

Post by Meylis Lawrence »

wayne128 wrote:I had this kind of thing on one computer a friend brought to me for helping.

Win7 crash after boot from Hard disk.
cannot boot from USB
cannot boot from DVD.!!


so what I did was:
open casing
unplug the cables to Hard disk and cables to DVD.

plug in a known working , bootable USB flash drive with Linux OS

it booted up and so it is OK.

Then I power down computer

add back the DVD cables
boot again, this time it can boot from DVD

so I power down and put back hard disk cable
now it still can boot from DVD and from USB

I run Live from USB, try to check hard disk, it was so corrupted that, at the end, I decided to reformat the whole hard disk, reinstall Win7 and since then it has been working quite well in Win7..
thought it might help you to try out. no guaranteed :mrgreen:
Thanks for a quick reply!
I'm too scared to open the casing as I haven't done that before. I do however have an external hard drive. Do you know any way I could fix this with it? I know how to remove the internal hard drive.
wayne128

Re: "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

Post by wayne128 »

I do however have an external hard drive.
Do you know any way I could fix this with it?
I know how to remove the internal hard drive.
You said you boot from USB drive but have a _

so now you need to try this.
boot from USB
immediately hit a key when grub menu appears
then scroll to 'recover' or compatibility mode or similar kind of wording.

try to boot, and see if it allow you to boot in recover mode. if you can get that then, check what the console told you, sometime you might have a filesystem corruption, and you will be told to do fsck. after that startx to see if you can get into graphic mode

good luck
kurotsugi

Re: "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

Post by kurotsugi »

I've delleted all the partitions on my brother's laptop including the 200mb System partitionth through recover CD called Boot-Repair-Disk from ubuntu website. The thing is I was going to clean install Windows 7 on unallocated space as it would make a System Partition automatically.
that's the problem. windows 7 store the boot needed stuffs on that place. you need to restore the content of that partition and reinstall windows native bootloader to get your windows7 back.
Mark Phelps
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Re: "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

Post by Mark Phelps »

Your PC is clearly NOT booting from anything other than the hard drive -- which is why it continues to fail every time.

Some PC's use F12 to bring up a one-time-boot page that allows you to select the device to be used for the booting. If yours has that, you should be able to select the DVD drive.

The Repair CD you mentioned is NOT an install disk; it can only be used to repair boot loader problems. IF the OS is gone, it is useless.

Since you apparently removed the Recovery partition, any Restore operation that might have been accessible previously using some kind of key combination when booting won't work now, either.

If you actually have Win7 installation media (it will be a DVD, not a CD), then using the F12 option, you should be able to boot from it.
Meylis Lawrence

Re: "Bootmgr is missing" - won't boot any DVD or USB

Post by Meylis Lawrence »

Thank you Everybody,

I just want to let you know that I've managed to fix it. Here is what I did:

1. I've removed the internal hard drive and fixed it into another laptop.

2. Installed windows on it using USB Flash, because the usb flash booted on another laptop even though it is the same corrupted hard drive.

3. Then fixed the internal hard drive back to my laptop and reinstalled windows on unallocated space. It created the system and boot partition automatically.

The laptop is, now, even faster than before. :)

Have a great day, thanks again!
Meylis
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