BootMgr Missing after Easus Repart of C - No Repair Tool is Working

Kaktussoft said:

Get the ISO from here Windows 7 Direct Download Links

Take the correct language and bitrate (x64 or x86)

I noticed on her machine the Win prod key sticker says "Genuine Windows 7 Home Prem OA" .. but I know it was 64-bit (I checked when she bought it and it had two Programs folders (...(x86) and Programs).

It does NOT say SP1 on the sticker... would it? If it as SP1?

And that link does not have Home Prem non-SP1.... or english iso's. :)

EDIT: WRONG... English is below... but still don't see iso for non-SP1...

EDIT: Wrong again.... found the RTM but this will take a couple hours to dl so won't be back until much later.

EDIT: Still not sure if RTM will work as "OA" version... I really think it is the OEM HP stuff messing this up, and nothing but an HP-proprietary MS disc will work. But I hope I am wrong.

Thanks so much for your help...

Kaktussoft said:

use this English
(USA) Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1 U (media refresh)X17-58997.iso

Sp1 is on machine for sure... automatic updates were enabled I assume. Anyway... It can do a "startup repair" for non SP1 version as well.

OK, thank you, switched to that iso. My connection is rather slow and I know it is 1am your time... so again will take a couple hours to DL. And yes, her auto-updates were enabled.

Really appreciate your time...

Kaktussoft said:

Gonna sleep

Thanks Kaktussoft.

Burned the iso and upon first boot the disc actually made it all the way to where it shows the installed OS and the radio button to repair windows! I couldn't believe it! I was so happy. Immediately a popup came up saying "C:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-20 is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the chkdsk utility..." Followed by many more popups of same…

...meanwhile behind this popup was another, and when I finally got to it, it was the standard screen that comes up to say it found errors in the Windows installation and asked if I wanted to fix them. I clicked YES and Details and said among other things it was fixing Boot Manager and System Volume…

After only a second or two it auto-rebooted. The reboot ended with the same old black text screen asking if I want to go into Windows Recovery or Boot Normally. And I got the same old results. (Win Rec would just disappear/reappear if I chose it, and Boot Normally ended in THIS.)

When I tried booting from the CD again, I got the error about it not being compatible…. after several tries it got as far as the keyboard screen again, so I used SHIFT F10 to get to a command prompt.

Ran chkdsk c: and it scrolled a million lines real fast that all said: File record segment [xxxx] is an orphan. So ran chkdsk c: /f and it deleted all the orphaned files and completed. Ran it again using the /b switch and it found no bad clusters or errors. Ran a final time using /f and it found no errors.

I had high hopes it might boot now, but no such luck. The hard disk LED flashes briefly with the MS Windows words at the bottom of screen, then it goes black and I get this again.

So I repeated what was suggested earlier, [boot from CD, shift F10, and] diskpart / select c / active … but got the same error as before about it not being a fixed MBR disk.

Also repeated volume checking for bootmgr and it found it in C but oddly it is no longer found in the HP_Recovery partition… only in C. (So maybe Windows Repair did do something when I was able to get into it that once and it said it was fixing the boot manager.)

I tried many more times to boot the CD and try the Repair hyperlink, but it tells me "this version is not compatible…" every time. I don't know why it worked the first time only.

I ran a DPS Self-test on the hard disk from inside the BIOS. It passed.

I checked the boot sequence again… it's still correct.

I tried booting into safe mode…. the files start scrolling down the monitor in text mode but shortly I get an error and it's back to the built-in Windows Recovery text screen that just disappears/reappears if I select to repair.


Seems like the error when trying to make the C drive active (i.e. "this is not a fixed MBR disk") is key... but I don't know how that got screwed up... even Easus re-sizing should not have caused that, and Paragon is supposed to support GPT... there is no reason it would have changed those kinds of parameters just using the default backup method.

Thanks. When I resolve this whatever way it turns out I will post what happened here for future readers in case it helps anyone.