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#1
Boot manager is missing (please read and help)
Hello,
I know that there are many threads dealing with this problem but none of the recommended solutions has worked so far and I tried so many different suggest solutions. Please help me. Here is what happened:
I have 3 partitions on my PC:
C: Windows Vista
W: Windows 7
D: my files (documents, pictures, etc)
F: external hard drive for backup = my files on the D drive.
My PC came with Windows Vista pre-installed on it (I have the installation CD), and then I bought and installed Windows 7 (I have the installation CD) on partition W. I set up my PC so that when it starts it chooses Windows 7 automatically. Since I haven't used Windows Vista in a very long time and it was taking way too much space that I needed for the W drive I decided to get rid of Windows 7/partition C (big mistake!)
So from Windows 7 I tried to format and delete the C partition but I got an error saying that I cannot do that since there are files on the C drive that are in use. So I said "Ok", it was no big deal I could live with Windows Vista taking space on the hard drive--as long as the computer is working! But I set Windows 7 (partition W) as the Active Drive in the hope that I would be able to format/delete the C partition (I thought that's why I was not allowed to get rid of the C partition/Windows Vista). But again I got other errors telling me that I cannot format/delete the C partition so I forgot about it. However, I did not change the set up back to make the C partition as the active partition before shutting down the computer.
I shut down the computer and restarted and now I get the boot manager is missing error, and asking me to press ctrl+alt+delete to restart. Even pressing those three buttons does not restart the PC--I have to restart the computer manually by pressing on the restart button. I also cannot access the BIOS; when the computer starts there is a screen that says press F2 to access the BIOS but when I do that the computer just freezes.
I tried some suggested solutions I found on different forums but none of them worked. First, my Windows Vista CD does not give me the option to repair the computer--it starts a new installation automatically (which I cancel as soon as it starts). Second, my Windows 7 CD is unable to repair the computer. Actually, my Windows 7 CD cannot even detect any installed Windows OS on the hard drive; you know, the System Recovery Options window shows no operation system whatsoever. Even when I followed some command prompt codes such as diskpart, etc, it only shows there is one hard drive and one partition! I even tried the suggest command prompt codes for both drives, C and W, and it made no difference. Safe Mode did not work either. Storing and re-creating BCD, etc, did not work either.
The only thing that kind of made a difference is when I followed some suggest solution about changing nt50 to nt60 command code, then when I restarted it said NTLDR is missing instead of boot manager is missing. But again, the PC still doesn't work so I changed it back to nt50, or something.
Thanks God I have my family photos, etc recently backed up on the external hard drive, but I still have some important work documents on the Windows 7 desktop that I really need, and so I don't want to lose them. I just want to be able to access Windows 7 once to save those few important files and then I don't care if I format the hard drive or not. Can I log in/boot Windows from the Windows 7 CD?
Please help, thanks a lot :)