Strange Bootmgr Issue.

Hey guys :)

I've just obseved something very strange.

Today i went ahead and reinstalled Windows 7 on my 320GB HDD (Disk 0). The hard drive is split into 3 partitions - 150GB for the OS, 150GB for personal data & 20GB for Karmic (roughly).

I proceeded as i usually would, booting from USB, deleting the 150GB OS partition, creating a new one and installing. Everything went swimmingly (if not a little slow) until i got to Desktop.
I noticed that my data partition wasn't recognized in Explorer. After consulting with Disk management the partition was if fact there, it just needed a letter assigning to it which i did through diskpart (G).

After browsing through my data partition to setup my Libraries, i noticed that bootmgr and the boot folder was on it. I deleted the bootmgr and boot folder and rebooted expecting to see "bootmgr is missing". I wasn't disappointed, i restarted, booted into W7 setup and repaired the installation thinking it would setup the bootmgr on the OS partition. Whilst repair setup ran and detected the Windows installations, it came up that D: had Windows installed on it when in fact it's installed on C: (D is my DVD drive). i thought this must be a glitch and carried on with the repair anyway. It repaired the install but put the bootmgr and boot folder back onto my data partition.

It's hope it's not life threatening and i eagerly await your suggestions before i carry on with any further setup. I'm curious to know why it's done this and how to rectify it.
I've done nothing different to what i'd usually do.

Here's a shot of Disk Management as it stands & both drives for clarification.





Thanks in advance for your time :)

Stu, I might be completely wrong and don't have my Win7 computer to check, but isn't the actual boot manager file in C:\Windows\boot or something like that?

Can you go slower? It will be embarrassing for me.... :)

The data partition somehow got marked Active which confused the Win7 installer.

Download and burn to CD the best partition manager for Win7, free Partition Wizard.

Back up your files and a Win7 backup image so you can start over if necessary.

Boot into PW, right click on Data drive and Modify>Set Inactive.

Now right click on Windows 7 drive and Modify>Set active. Apply both operations,.

Now boot into Win7 DVD Repair console and run Startup Repair repeatedly until Win7 boots, as it needs to first attempt repair and then rewrite the MBR to Win7.

wallyinnc said:

Stu, I might be completely wrong and don't have my Win7 computer to check, but isn't the actual boot manager file in C:\Windows\boot or something like that?

Can you go slower? It will be embarrassing for me.... :)

Hi Walter, yes there is a bootmgr file in C:\Windows\Boot\PCAT, but the one i'm concerned about (boot folder & bootmgr) should be in C:\Windows which has been set on my data partition (G)

gregrocker said:

The data partition somehow got marked Active which confused the Win7 installer.

Download and burn to CD the best partition manager for Win7, free Partition Wizard.

Boot into PW, right click on Data drive and Modify>Set Inactive.

Now right click on Windows 7 drive and Modify>Set active. Apply both operations,.

Now boot into Win7 DVD Repair console and run Startup Repair repeatedly until Win7 boots, as it needs to first attempt repair and then rewrite the MBR to Win7.

Hi Greg, i had a feeling i'd see you here

Unfortunately ( I should have mentioned this before, my bad!) burning a DVD to boot from is out of the question. My DVD drive is on the blink and only reads, it refuses to burn.

Is there a USB alternative i can use? My PC does support booting from USB drives/sticks.

Is this something to be worried about or is it a matter than can be dealt with casually?

Thanks for all your suggestions guys

Partition Wizard only needs a CD. Can you burn a CD?

Back up your files and a Windows 7 backup image so you can start over if necessary

If no CD, run free Partition Wizard from your desktop to see if it will Modify>Set inactive Data Partition, then Modify>Set Active Windows 7.

If not use the booted Win7 flash installer Repair console Command Line to run Diskpart commands:

Boot Win7 installer>Repair console>Recovery tools, open a Command Line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK 0
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION # (for Windows 7 partition)
ACTIVE
EXIT


now mark Data partition inactive so it doesn't need to be formatted:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK 0
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION # (for Data Drive partition)
INACTIVE
EXIT

Now boot into Win7 DVD Repair console and run Startup Repair repeatedly as it will attempt to repair and then rewrite the MBR to Win7 partition.

Thanks Greg :)

Can the diskpart commands be run in Windows or do i have to boot into the recovery console?
If within Windows, can i set the data partition (G) as inactive, delete boot & bootmgr from (G) and then boot into startup repair?? Would that work?

Eitherway, i'm sure using your method will solve this.

I'll report back tomorrow, it's late now. Thanks again

rsvr85 said:

Thanks Greg :)

Can the diskpart commands be run in Windows or do i have to boot into the recovery console?
If within Windows, can i set the data partition (G) as inactive, delete boot & bootmgr from (G) and then boot into startup repair?? Would that work?

Eitherway, i'm sure using your method will solve this.

I'll report back tomorrow, it's late now. Thanks again

Yes marking Data partition inactive should disable bootmgr but you can delete those files,

then mark Win7 active and run Startup Repair 3 times to recover to it the MBR.

Use Win7 flashstick to boot into Command line and run Diskpart as given above.

Back up your files and a Windows 7 backup image so you can start over if necessary

All done!

Thanks a lot Greg