Windows 7 - Getting "BOOTMGR IS MISSING" after clean install of RC1

Installation goes fine - have tried both the 32 and 64 bit image.

I had XP on the install partition. During setup of Windows 7 I chose to format that partition in order to do a clean install (and no dual boot). Installation finishes perfectly. Reboot. But no luck. Something goes wrong, and my computer is just telling me "BOOTMGR IS MISSING" leaving me with no options. Didn't have that problem when I tested Windows 7 beta back in January (also formatting the XP partition during installation).

Have tried to make BIOS adjustments such as changing the AHCI/SATA settings. Doesn't help.

Have also tried repair from the Windows 7 DVD. Doesn't help either (in fact it says that it can not find any problems)

Any help would be highly appreciated. I really don't know what's wrong!

best,

Thomas

Hardware: AMD 790 chipset, Nvidia 9500GT graphics, AMD 4850e processor, 2 GB RAM.

Try this method:

you can rebuild the BCD store by using the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment. To do this, follow these steps: - Get your Windows 7 installation DVD and pop it into your drive.
- Then restart your computer.
- Press a key when you are prompted.
- Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next
- Click Repair your computer
- Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next
- In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt
- Type bootrec /rebuildbcd and then press ENTER

• If Bootrec runs successfully, it will present you with the installation path of a Windows directory. To add the entry to the BCD store, type Yes . A confirmation message appears that indicates the entry was added successfully.

• If Bootrec cannot locate any missing Windows installations, you must remove the BCD store, and then you must re-create it. To do this, type the following commands in the order shown below: (Remember to press ENTER after each command)

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /rebuildbcd

- Restart the computer.

Thanks for your reply!

However, I tried reinstalling RC1 after having unplugged all other harddisks in my pc. And guess what... now it works! I find this very strange, and I do not think that RC1 is ready for prime time yet (which is off course why 7 final version is not released as of yet).

So I didn't have to go through the rather complex procedures described in your reply. But I'm sure that others who're having more or less similar problems are going to find it useful.

best,

Thomas

I am having similar problem with bootmgr missing after I changed boot order in bios. When I was installing windows 7 my boot order was 1. removable 2. cd-rom 3. hard drive. Windows booted up fine. When I swaped cd-rom with hard drive, then I had bootmgr is missing.

Thanks for the above howto!

I wish I had found your post yesterday afternoon.. it might have saved me 2 or 3 hours of Repair Install

Could one use bootrec to save a backup copy of the BCD somewhere for later restore, like one did with MBRwiz in the 'good old days', or is that unnecessary?

Mvh

I am sorry but i have tried rebuilding boot record and fixing it. It still doesn't fix the problem. I think it may have to do something with RAID 0 that I am running. I have two 1tb wd in raid 0 and 250gb raptor that is currently unplugged so it wouldn't complicate the issue even more.
For now I put the boot order back how it was during install and it works fine. I am really enjoying my Windows 7 experience.

I am also having the BOOTMGR is missing error. I am running Windows 7 in Virtual PC and the first attempt froze at the 0% mark so I created a new DVD and now I am getting the boot record error. Do i need to do the above instructions if im using the Virtual console? Any advive or comments are apprecited. Thanks. Drew.

BIG thanks to raj1402 for the solution that worked perfectly for me on the first try!

I was having the same problem but mine did not happen until i removed one of my 3 hdds to use in another machine, some how the bootmgr was on the hdd i removed, so the only thing that worked for me was to disconnect all hard drives except the one containing my OS then pop in my win 7 dvd, go to repair, and select start up repair, it fixed it in about 10 seconds. so not sure how my bootmgr got on that hdd because it wasn't even installed when i installed Win 7, but anyhow i hope this helps someone

I had the missing boot appear while i was adding a second hard drive. Routed the cables to make sure hard drive 1 was in port 1 on motherboard and second drive was in port 2. If you have you secondary hard drive plugged in before your 1st hard drive it will try to read the blank hard drive first, it appears in the Bios. Hope this helps?