windows 7(missing BOOTMGR erorr)

phaze said:

Attachment 58795

In the red where i highlighted the partition that is the system reserve partition on the 500gb drive. I didn't delete it when i reformatted the drive because its a separate partition i saw that on the Windows 7 partition editor before you install windows 7.

Here are the steps i did:
First put the cd in and let it boot from the cd. Then i when through the install windows inside the windows 7 install. When i saw the windows that you can see all the partition on your computer, and edit, reformat, delete them. I simply selected my 500gb hard drive and reformatted. Before i ddid this I made sure i did not delete the "system reserve partition that the boot menu uses". When the drive was done reformatting which took 2 mins or less i made sure the "system reserve partition on that 500gb drive was not harm or messed with before installing". Then i went through with the install process, and later the boot menu was lost!

Notice: in the picture the system reserve partition is still Active?
Why?

Yes, very good. I see the "System Reserved" partition is "Active" and "boot", which is good ... as it should be. I still do not under stand why it did not include Vista in the boot menu. The only difference between this and my test computer is I did not have the Vista partition marked as "Active" when I installed 7? You can use the Partition Wizard to mark Vista as not active, it might make things simpler for you?

To add Vista to the boot menu, I would suggest you boot to the DVD to the command prompt option and type:
bootrec /rebuildbcd
This will scan for 7 and Vista and ask you if you want to add to your boot menu.

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

That should put Vista back in your boot menu.

iseeuu said:

phaze said:

Attachment 58795

In the red where i highlighted the partition that is the system reserve partition on the 500gb drive. I didn't delete it when i reformatted the drive because its a separate partition i saw that on the Windows 7 partition editor before you install windows 7.

Here are the steps i did:
First put the cd in and let it boot from the cd. Then i when through the install windows inside the windows 7 install. When i saw the windows that you can see all the partition on your computer, and edit, reformat, delete them. I simply selected my 500gb hard drive and reformatted. Before i ddid this I made sure i did not delete the "system reserve partition that the boot menu uses". When the drive was done reformatting which took 2 mins or less i made sure the "system reserve partition on that 500gb drive was not harm or messed with before installing". Then i went through with the install process, and later the boot menu was lost!

Notice: in the picture the system reserve partition is still Active?
Why?

Yes, very good. I see the "System Reserved" partition is "Active" and "boot", which is good ... as it should be. I still do not under stand why it did not include Vista in the boot menu. The only difference between this and my test computer is I did not have the Vista partition marked as "Active" when I installed 7? You can use the Partition Wizard to mark Vista as not active, it might make things simpler for you?

To add Vista to the boot menu, I would suggest you boot to the DVD to the command prompt option and type:
bootrec /rebuildbcd
This will scan for 7 and Vista and ask you if you want to add to your boot menu.

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

That should put Vista back in your boot menu.

Do a person have to put your Operating systems as not active everytime they reformat the operating system; in order to not mess up and have the other new os your are installing correct? This is pain that this happens so frequently. I will try the steps stated above when i get home thank you for the fast reply! Does a person have to put in the Vista disc to fix the boot menu or can they fix it another way without doing that? I thought a person could use a free open source boot menu that would not have so must problems as the Default window operating system boot menus, but if not all just figure out better ways to do my reinstalling when i have to. Not that i reinstall my Operating Systems all the time. Knowing the steps and how to property fix and edit partition is money!

phaze said:

Do a person have to put your Operating systems as not active everytime they reformat the operating system; in order to not mess up and have the other new os your are installing correct? This is pain that this happens so frequently. I will try the steps stated above when i get home thank you for the fast reply! Does a person have to put in the Vista disc to fix the boot menu or can they fix it another way without doing that? I thought a person could use a free open source boot menu that would not have so must problems as the Default window operating system boot menus, but if not all just figure out better ways to do my reinstalling when i have to. Not that i reinstall my Operating Systems all the time. Knowing the steps and how to property fix and edit partition is money!

"Do a person have to put your Operating systems as not active everytime they reformat the operating system"? The short answer is NO.

However, installing more than one Operating System on a computer, and then installing more Operating Systems on more hard drives on the same computer gets complicated. Unless and until one understands how all the different components, both hardware and software, react under specific situations there may be problems.

For example: With one hard drive, one partition, and one OS you only have to push the power button. The computer does everything else and you can start using the software. With one hard drive, two partitions, and two OSs you need a boot manager. The BIOS HAS TO KNOW where the boot manager is located so the software marks the partition with the boot code "Active". Windows allows only one "Primary" partition to be active on each hard drive. If you change the "Active" partition, erase the boot code, or move the location of a partition the BIOS is going to tell you it can not find anything to boot!

With two (or more) hard drives you can have two "Active" partitions, one on each hard drive. This is useful if you are going to use the BIOS boot menu to choose the hard drive to boot to. But it gets confusing when the boot code gets installed in another "Active" partition on another hard drive and you are not expecting that.

In your situation, you have the advantage of the 100MB boot partition. It holds your boot code with the boot manager and is the only partition on either hard drive that NEEDS to be "Active".

Once it is understood how this works, you can plan how you want it done. If you do not want the boot code to end up on another hard drive, you unplug all hard drives except one before installing the OS. If you want the boot code to go, for example to your boot partition, then you place that hard drive first, where the boot partition is first, and have it marked as "Active". These are all choices for you to make and how your setup ends up depends on what you decide to do.

When I installed Windows 7, it automatically found the other OSs and included them in the boot menu. Why you only have Windows 7 in your boot menu I don't know. I am sure the more you experiment and learn, eventually the reason will come to light.

Cheers!

Thank you for explaining that to me. Well i rebooted a couple of times and the boot menu seem to show up after the third boot, so the windows boot menu is working fine now.

Now we can start fixing the Ubuntu!

I have never had so much great help then on any other forum on the NET!!

phaze said:

Thank you for explaining that to me. Well i rebooted a couple of times and the boot menu seem to show up after the third boot, so the windows boot menu is working fine now.

Now we can start fixing the Ubuntu!

I have never had so much great help then on any other forum on the NET!!

Windows Seven Forums is here to help people ... if we can. We are happy to do so.

Please go back to the post and follow the directions for repairing Grub for your version of Ubuntu 9.04. If you have changed the version of Ubuntu, you will need to follow the directions for the that version of Ubuntu.

Let us know how it goes.

Sorry man i got really busy with college! I currently have Windows Vista on the 320 hard drive and only windows 7 on the 500gb drive because i reformatted a 2 weeks ago, but since i am getting done with college i have more time. I was going to ask you the best way i can go about dual booting a fresh install of the latest linux Ubuntu OS. I want to do it right so i see it listed in the windows 7 boot manger? Any idea and again thank you for all your help!

can you support me on this iseeu?

phaze said:

Sorry man i got really busy with college! I currently have Windows Vista on the 320 hard drive and only windows 7 on the 500gb drive because i reformatted a 2 weeks ago, but since i am getting done with college i have more time. I was going to ask you the best way i can go about dual booting a fresh install of the latest linux Ubuntu OS. I want to do it right so i see it listed in the windows 7 boot manger? Any idea and again thank you for all your help!

phaze said:

can you support me on this iseeu?

Hello phaze, Glad to hear Collage is going well for you!

My first suggestion is to consider installing Ubuntu via the WUBI utility?

If I had two hard drives, as you say you do, I would want my Windows 7 and Vista on one hard drive, and my Ubuntu on my second hard drive. That would allow me to install the GRUB boot loader on the second hard drive with access to all three OSs. It would also allow me to safely keep the Windows 7 / Vista bootmgr on the first hard drive. The advantage to this is the ability to use either boot manager by selecting which hard drive to boot from in the BIOS. If something were to happen to one hard drive, you can still boot from the remaining hard drive.

Just my suggestion for one way of setting up a dual boot ...

Cheers!
Robert

iseeuu said:

phaze said:

Sorry man i got really busy with college! I currently have Windows Vista on the 320 hard drive and only windows 7 on the 500gb drive because i reformatted a 2 weeks ago, but since i am getting done with college i have more time. I was going to ask you the best way i can go about dual booting a fresh install of the latest linux Ubuntu OS. I want to do it right so i see it listed in the windows 7 boot manger? Any idea and again thank you for all your help!

phaze said:

can you support me on this iseeu?

Hello phaze, Glad to hear Collage is going well for you!

My first suggestion is to consider installing Ubuntu via the WUBI utility?

If I had two hard drives, as you say you do, I would want my Windows 7 and Vista on one hard drive, and my Ubuntu on my second hard drive. That would allow me to install the GRUB boot loader on the second hard drive with access to all three OSs. It would also allow me to safely keep the Windows 7 / Vista bootmgr on the first hard drive. The advantage to this is the ability to use either boot manager by selecting which hard drive to boot from in the BIOS. If something were to happen to one hard drive, you can still boot from the remaining hard drive.

Just my suggestion for one way of setting up a dual boot ...

Cheers!
Robert

Sounds good man I currently have Windows 7 only on the 500gb with the boot manger installed like you stepped me threw. I have vista install on the other drive currently the 320gb, so you are recommending me to install Ubuntu on the 320 gb hard drive. That way i will have two boot mangers correct? I was hopping to set this up so i can pick what operating system to boot right after the bios screen loads.

I was going to install the new sexy Ubuntu 10.04 man that looks promising!

I would prefer to install ubuntu normally like i would go about any other operating system. Instead of using that sweet utility Wubi thanks for the suggest though. All keep that in mind of the future.

Edit: i have all night..so all be checking this forum to see your reply.

phaze said:

Sounds good man I currently have Windows 7 only on the 500gb with the boot manger installed like you stepped me threw. I have vista install on the other drive currently the 320gb, so you are recommending me to install Ubuntu on the 320 gb hard drive. That way i will have two boot mangers correct? I was hopping to set this up so i can pick what operating system to boot right after the bios screen loads.

I was going to install the new sexy Ubuntu 10.04 man that looks promising!

Edit: i have all night..so all be checking this forum to see your reply.

Well ... the final decision is yours, to set it up to suit your preferences. And yes, when completed, you will still have the Windows boot manager, with the addition of a menu entry for your new Ubuntu, so you will select the OS from the menu right after the BIOS screen. But you will also have the option of the GRUB boot loader that will also allow you to select the OS from the menu after the BIOS loads.

TBH I do not know how the Windows boot loader will react to having both Vista and Ubuntu on your second hard drive. But consider this: if you move your Vista partition to the 500GB hard drive, then you can have Ubuntu on the 320GB hard drive all by itself, plus you will have room for backups of your 7 and Vista on a separate hard drive which is also a good idea.

Just one idea of how to set it up. Of course the last word is yours ... let us know what you decide?

Cheers!
Robert