"Bootmgr missing" problem

[Ameyaa]

Due to some reason i replaced my HDD. Got a new 160GB drive & installed it with Windows XP. Things worked well other than I have to reinstall all the things. But i found easy to reinstall all the thing through Norton Ghost.It stopped after 30 minutes. So I downloaded True Image...... but the computer went off before I could Image, went into self chkdsk, made repairs, and then rebooted only to show....... "BOOTMGR is missing, Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart."

Can Anyone know solution for this ?

[Raine]

If the boot partition no longer can be found, then Vista will display the following error:

BOOTMGR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

The Windows Boot Configuration Data file is missing required information

More Info MS KB 919529
More Info MS KB 927391

[Macarenas]

I suggest trying the following methods to troubleshoot the issue:

Method 1: Startup Repair from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
=========================================================

1. Insert the Windows Vista installation disc into the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears.

3. Select a language, a time and currency, and a keyboard or input method, and then click Next.

4. Click Repair your computer.

5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, choose the drive of your Windows installation and click Next.

6. At the System Recovery Options Dialog Box, click on Repair your computer.

7. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.

8. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Startup Repair.



Method 2: Rebuild BCD
============================================

1. Put the Windows Vista installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears.

3. Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next.

4. Click Repair your computer.

5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.

6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

7. Type Bootrec /RebuildBcd , and then press ENTER.



Method 3: Use the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to run System Restore ==============================================================

1. Insert the Windows Vista installation disc into the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears.

3. Select a language, a time and currency, and a keyboard or input method, and then click Next.

4. Click Repair your computer.

5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, choose the drive of your Windows installation and click Next

6. At the System Recovery Options Dialog Box, click on System Restore.

7. Follow the System Restore Wizard instruction as usual and choose the appropriate restore point.

8. Click Finish to restore the system.

[JonathanD]

When the computer starts then it tries to figure out which device to boot from (Hard-disk, cdrom, dvd, usb, flash, floppy, etc.). If no device is found or if a faulty boot device is used, then one of the following messages can be shown:

Invalid boot device

No boot device found

No boot device available

Unable to find boot device. Select proper boot device or insert boot media

There can be different causes for this problem:

* Disk a have been left in a removable drive:
Usually caused by having inserted a disk in the floppy drive or the CD-ROM drive or attaching an USB flash drive. Just remove the disk from the drive, and it should be solved.

More Info MS KB Q812492

* Hard disk controller doesn't recognize the right boot drive:
One should verify that hard disk cables are properly attached and that the hard disk is being detected properly by the system.
If having added a new hard disk, then one should make sure that the disk controller doesn't attempt to boot from the new hard disk.
If having reset the motherboard BIOS configuration, then one should check that the primary boot device is configured properly.
* Boot partition is not active partition:
If having been working with partition tools (Like Disk Management or Fdisk), then one might have removed the Active Partition setting from the boot partition.
o Vista - Use Windows Recovery Environment and perform a "Startup Repair".
o Win2k / XP / Win2k3 - Use Recovery Console and run fixboot
o Win9x / DOS - Use a partition configuration tool like Fdisk to set the active boot partition.

More Info MS KB Q315261

[Sam.D]

Did you have more than one partition (incl. the hidden one from IBM/Lenovo) to clone? If so, the MBR or the bootmanager or the partition table or altogether may not have installed properly (XP seems to like making such problems with more partitions available).

[Ameyaa]

As luck would have it, after posting in the forums my laptop decided it would let me through without the "bootmgr missing" error. No idea why it suddenly happened. It got past the "bootmgr missing" part only to reach the page where I choose how to start up, in safe mode or normal mode. With any choice I made the computer didn't progress. Aside from the HDD having some problems I think that the crash or chkdsk repair that followed threw Windows even more out of whack. So now I have a new problem.