bootmgr problem, system working with win7 DVD

Glad the problem has been solved. What did solve the problem? Three startup repairs, or cleaning up second harddisk (nothing was on it, only system volume folder and recycle bin)

gregrocker said:

Possibly both, or it could have been marking the partition Active if that had not yet been done before Repairs x3.

You need three Startup Repairs to repair or rewrite the System boot files to the partition which MUST be marked Active.

And it's best to unplug other HD's since old boot code can sometimes conflict, so wiping the HD may have cleared the boot sector, too. Bootsecting can remain even with a deleted or formatted HD.

C partition was active all the time. MBR and boot sector were rebuild. System could start using dvd..... very strange!

Other disk doesn't have on active partitition.... still don't understand what went wrong.

Sometimes computer problems are a great mistery

If you know for sure OP ran three complete Startup Repairs with reboots (often not completed) while C was marked Active, then it was possibly interference from the other HD which can retain the /nt60 bootsecting even if it's formatted and deleted, but not if it's Wiped with Clean command. This is why the unplug, which he satisfied by wiping.

We have some cases where the SysReserved partition is also corrupt so that the Active flag needs to be shifted to the Win7 partition itself to run the Repairs, if first it won't start trying Repairs on SysReserved.

You get a feel for these after so many thousand (Today is my third Anniversary here). One thing we've learned since beta is that automated Startup Repair covers more bases than just the bootrec commands which it also automates. However in rare cases bootrec/bootsect commands need running manually if all else fails. Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot - Windows 7 Forums

Edit: What a perfect circle! I see our original teacher here SIW2 is in the thread so maybe he'll elaborate on all of this.

gregrocker said:

If you know for sure OP ran three complete Startup Repairs with reboots (often not completed) while C was marked Active, then it was possibly interference from the other HD which can retain the /nt60 bootsecting even if it's formatted and deleted, but not if it's Wiped with Clean command. This is why the unplug, which he satisfied by wiping.

We have some cases where the SysReserved partition is also corrupt so that the Active flag needs to be shifted to the Win7 partition itself to run the Repairs, if first it won't start trying Repairs on SysReserved.

You get a feel for these after so many thousand (Today is my third Anniversary here). One thing we've learned since beta is that automated Startup Repair covers more bases than just the bootrec commands which it also automates. However in rare cases bootrec/bootsect commands need running manually if all else fails. Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot - Windows 7 Forums

Edit: What a perfect circle! I see our original teacher here SIW2 is in the thread so maybe he'll elaborate on all of this.

Thanx for all the clear explanation. He didn't perform startup repair 3 times I think. But the first startup repair said everything was OK and system was booting fine with DVD inserted. Even bootsector and MBR were raplaced using bootsect.

So I think the second disk is actually the first drive that BIOS tries to boot from(?) Second drive was almost sure the problem. But still I don't understand why it says "missing bootmgr" as this message comes from partition bootsector (not MBR). That partition wasn't active at all!! It looks like MBR thinks it's active

Should replacing second disk MBR and bootsector fix the problem you think? We'll never know

Now I have learned something... never trust my own logic. To be sure it boots from right disk... unplug all other disks.