Boot mgr is missing press ctrl +alt+del to restart

moziconnect09 · 17 Sep 2010

i am a newbie as far as computer hardware is concerned. after struggling for days to install windows 7 onto my new pc which came without and 0s installed,
specs are:

hp pavillion elite m9255.uk
amd phenom 9500 quad core
4gb ram
1tb hard drive ( comprised of 2 500gb hard drives)
note 1 of them i made a partition of 30gb where i installed the win 7 OS the rest of the 465 used as storage for my files.

the other 500gb i left untouced which on disk management is unused incase i do decide to dual boot a mac os on that one.

i was using my computer for almost 2 days installing all my files and softwares etc when suddenly it shut down on me and when i tried turning it on it said

Disk boot error please insert system disk and press enter

i tried changing the boot order in the BIos
open the cpu casing unplugging blowing and re plugging the cables to the hard drives in.
however on the bios both hard drives are listed and wen i check status says that they both okay

i tried booting using the installation disc trying start up repair no luck with that
went into command prompt option
tried typing in
diskpart (enter)
lis vol (enter)
it list the 465 which i use for storage but the 30gb where the 0s is installed dosent show. surely if the hard drive had a problem the 465gb wouldnt show as it an te 30gb makes up te 500gb?

i tried
selecting the 465gb volume enter and then exiting diskpart
then it says

BOOT MGR IS MISSING PRESS CTRL +ALT+DEL TO RESTART

so basiclly i have read almost all forums concerning this and followed most of the steps listed above for however mine says boot manager missing or corrupt, wen ever i run start up repair its says

start up repair cannot repair this computer automatically.
sending more information can help microsoft create solutions.

please do help me out as i have seen that almost everyone you helped so fars problem has been solved.

Bare Foot Kid · 17 Sep 2010

Hello moziconnect09, welcome to Seven Forums

As a place to start, will you please post a snip/screen-shot of the entire disk management drive map so we can see what you have going on as there may be a fairly simple way to resolve the situation.

In the Windows start menu right click computer and click manage, in the left pane of the "Computer Management" window that opens click disk management and post a snip of that.

How to Post a Screenshot in Seven Forums

moziconnect09 · 17 Sep 2010

thank you for welcoming me, i appreciate it..
i cannot access disk management as the windows operating system wont even load once it gets pass the hp welcome screen a black screen comes up with the message:

BOOT MGR IS MISSING PRESS CTRL +ALT+DEL TO RESTART

is there another way around?

thank you in advance

Bare Foot Kid · 17 Sep 2010

Have a look at the tutorial at the link below to see a method to do a startup repair to Windows; you may need to do as many as 3 separate startup repairs with a system restart between each repair to repair the boot files.

If that doesn't work you may need to mark the Windows partition as "Active" for the repairs to complete, have a look at option Two in the tutorial if the first idea doesn't work.

Be sure to post back with any questions and to keep us updated.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

Night Hawk · 17 Sep 2010

Changing the boot order wouldn't help from the start if the 30gb primary has somehow lost the MFT. The drive appearing in the post screen and seeing some indication of a startup show the drive is working ok while the boot sector or volume information may become corrupted somehow.

If the BCD information or boot file was lost or corrupted you could run the startup repair tool 10 times and still get nowhere in a hurry. This is when you have to resort to the Windows Recovery Environment while booted from the 7 dvd. "How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows" is the MS information on how to use the tool for rebuilding the BCD as well as the boot sector and mbr information.

The instructions there will get you past the limitations seen with the startup repair tool. Hopefully you will be back up and running in no time.

moziconnect09 · 18 Sep 2010

hi thank you to all that have replied so far i really do appreciate it
night hawk you are right i have run start up repair several times but no luck still same error when i do restart.
saying: BOOT MGR MISSING PRESS CTRL-ALT-DELETE TO RESTART

I think i know what the problem is i went into command prompt from the repair menu
typed in :
diskpart enter
list volume enter
and the list shows the 465gb ( which is the storage partition containing my music,image,video files) the other half of the 30gb forming 500gb is healthy
and 4gb usb form which i installed the OS system instead of dvd is also healthy
the 30gb containing the os installation however is not listed anywhere

so as i said originally have made the 465gb active which obviously as no microsoft os installation in it this maybe why the error BOOT MGR MISSING PRESS CTRL -ALT-DEL TO RESTART comes up

so the question now is how do i locate the missing 30gb ( on which the windows 7 ultimate x64 is installed on) in the diskpart and make that active?

also is there a way of accesing disk management prior to the os system running and entering (start up,etc)
as i think the original reason for the problem from the very start is the 30gb partition may not have been set as the primary c: and the 465gb is instead?

thank you to all in advance for taking the time out to reply and help me towards solving my beloved pc.

Bare Foot Kid · 18 Sep 2010

Bare Foot Kid said:

Have a look at the tutorial at the link below to see a method to do a startup repair to Windows; you may need to do as many as 3 separate startup repairs with a system restart between each repair to repair the boot files.

If that doesn't work you may need to mark the Windows partition as "Active" for the repairs to complete, have a look at option Two in the tutorial if the first idea doesn't work.

Be sure to post back with any questions and to keep us updated.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

Did you have a go at this Option Two to mark the partition as active and then try three startup repairs with restarts again?

moziconnect09 · 18 Sep 2010

hi barefoot kid yes i tried option 2 but once again the disk listed is 465gb instead of the whole 500gb or the 30gb( containing the os installation)
so couldnt select it and select which partition to make active

also tried downloading the partition wizard bootable cd and same issue only the 465gb is shown.

so where might the 30gb and does that mean i may have to re-install all over again?

thank you in advance

gregrocker · 18 Sep 2010

If only 465gb shows for that HD where you installed Win7, then you may have deleted the partition somehow.

Night Hawk · 18 Sep 2010

465gb is what you would expect on a 500gb drive as far as any OS will see as available drive space. If you start up the 7 installer up until the drive tools become available that will show all drives and partitions on them when selecting the format option.

You should see the 30gb plus an approximate 430+gb second partition you planned to use to store files on. The repair tools option should have already detected any 7 installation present and listed that when going in there for the startup repair if the partition table is still good.

Noting one thing here:

i tried
selecting the 465gb volume enter and then exiting diskpart
then it says

DiskPart should have been showing 30gb less then that amount if the 30gb wasn't turned back into a "raw" drive space for some reason. What did you use originally to partition the drive with? The drive tools for the 7 installer or a 3rd party program?