Solved Windows 7 not booting without a USB

[imamul]

Hi guys

I seem to be having an issue with my laptop after doing a clean install of windows 7 on my Samsung NP530U3B.

Prior to this i had linux installed which i wiped.

Now if i dont have a bootable usb connected the laptop wont boot into windows.

Instead i get a bootmgr is missing message.

I have tried the following:

1) System recovery
2) System repair
3) diskpart - selecting partition, making it active
4) bootrec fixboot, fixmbr and rebuildbcd in the C: as well as X:Sources
5) attrib -h -r -s, find windows installation and make it bootable
6) rebuilding of mbr through easeUS tools and easybcd

Still no fix and still the same issue.

Im assuming that windows just cant latch onto the boot files and when the bootable usb is in, is able to do so.

Any help or fix, feel like iv exhausted every option!

 

[billmcct]

Try setting the BIOS to boot the hard drive first. Had this problem once and resetting BIOS fixed it.

 

[imamul]

Try setting the BIOS to boot the hard drive first. Had this problem once and resetting BIOS fixed it.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Iv tried setting the HDD first in the BIOS with and without the USB plugged in, neither work im afraid.

Here is a pic of the disks in computer management:

 

[billmcct]

That image was upside down had to rotate. When you installed did you wipe out all the partitions on the drive and format?
The unallocated space on your drive is the "System" partition on my drive.

 

[imamul]

That image was upside down had to rotate. When you installed did you wipe out all the partitions on the drive and format?
The unallocated space on your drive is the "System" partition on my drive.

So sorry about that, i uploaded direct from mobile!

Yes so when i installed i did a wipe of everything and then installed.

Is it best to set the space as its own partition?

 

[billmcct]

If you make that a partition it will format it and any data will be lost. Try Partition Find and Mount. If found and recovered and mounted it will also be initilized.

Partition Find and Mount: Download

Ignore my spelling, having an alzhimers day.

 

[Megahertz07]

Please don't use external links. To post an image, with the snipping tool take a snapshot of the hole window and save it.
On the Quick Reply window, use the paper clip - browse to the image - upload.

On the D: HDD you only have 5 G on it, so windows hasn't been installed. You have to start over.
I have no idea how you could have installed on the USB drive.

Boot from the USB Win 7 installation disk and install on the HDD.
For the updates, use Simplix (all updates on a single package)
My suggestion is to set Services - Windows Update - Manual and on WU page set it to Never check.
Then run UpdatePack7R2
Simplix is a single file (850MB) that contain all updates since Win 7 released up to date. It has all security and non security updates without the trash (telemetry and tracking). Very good.

 

[imamul]

Hi guys

Thanks for the support billmcct i downloaded, launched and scanned using Find and Mount, couldnt find anything.
MegaHertZ thanks for the advice.

To explain, the D: is the main hard drive, this is for general storage. Windows 7 is actually installed on the C:, then there is an unallocated space of about 100mb.

Space allocation can be seen at the top with the percentages.

In the meantime, i assigned the unallocated space as a partition without a drive label. I used EasyBCD to indicate this as the boot drive, i then tried to start up repair 3 times, incl. going to diskpart and activating that partition.

Still not resolved!

I then tried to get EasyBCD to install boot files onto this drive, as well as changing the boot to this drive.

Nothing still!

Any advice is still welcome!

 

[Megahertz07]

Are you saying that the 14.9G isn't the USB flash drive?
Does the Laptop has a SSD (14.9G) and a HDD?

 

[imamul]

Hi Megahertz!

Yes thats exactly it, iv got a 16gb ssd with around 470 hdd, hope that helps?

*At the time of the image i had disconnected the usb drive.

 

[Megahertz07]

On my laptop, only the Windows folder is 24G.
The SSD is too small to have Windows and it seems you can't boot from it. I think it couldn't install all needed files on it.
An option is to install Win 7 on the HDD and use the SSD as a cache drive with intel IRST.

 

[Barman58]

The SSD appears to be more like an Optane Memory Module, from Intel. This system a virtual Raid array used to provide a fast data buffer for a single conventional Hard Disk Drive,

The same result can be achieved by purposely built Hybrid HDD products.

Optane Memory allows this technology to be added to devices of all sizes, including a more conventional SSDs, (optane memory is available in various sizes to suit various drive sizes),

To be used it needs to be set-up using tools available from Intel, once set up the drive is used as a conventional drive, the drivers installed control the data flow through the Buffer of the Optane Memory

I use a 32 GB Optane Memory module on my main 8TB data drive on my current desktop, to improve transfer coordination between my M2 & SSD drives and data store.

If it is what I suspect Once setup the drive, in this, case can simply be used as would a normal hard drive

 

[imamul]

On my laptop, only the Windows folder is 24G.
The SSD is too small to have Windows and it seems you can't boot from it. I think it couldn't install all needed files on it.
An option is to install Win 7 on the HDD and use the SSD as a cache drive with intel IRST.

Thanks, i havent got anything to lose so will try this out.

Appreciate the info Barman58, im assuming another option would be to install the relevant Intel drives of software?

 

[Barman58]

You would need to confirm that what I described is indeed the case, if it is (check the specs of the device or If you are confident about it go to the device manager in windows and look for Intel entries in the drives section

Drivers are available on line Downloads for Intel(R) Optane™ Memory

 

[Megahertz07]

Optane is a cache drive.

Install Win 7 on the HDD.
Install all drivers.
When everything is working properly, install IRST

Set IRST to make the small SSD work as a cache

 

[Megahertz07]

You would need to confirm that what I described is indeed the case, if it is (check the specs of the device or If you are confident about it go to the device manager in windows and look for Intel entries in the drives section

Drivers are available on line Downloads for Intel(R) Optane™ Memory

Nigel, for what I know, Optane only works with Win 10

 

[Barman58]

I've just checked and you are correct, as far as the way I described it working,

If you have a motherboard that supports the modules you can set it up as a manual cache using superfetch, which will improve performance. Another option is to use it for the pagefile location - once the pagefile is activated it will be faster than a conventional HDD. Basically it would work as emergency extra RAM

 

[imamul]

Bit late guys, but i do think Barman is onto something.

So first i did what MHz said and installed Windows onto the HDD, other than having 2 copies of Windows it didnt affect the boot so the issue remained.

After this i found another possible solution, to wipe everything, set up a seperate 100mb partition, install windows and let it create a system reserved, then copy the files from the reserved partition to the partition i created using bcdboot.

This is tied in with Samsungs SSD and how Windows auto selects this as the boot but the iSSD is inaccessible.

Anyway i did all this still to no success.

I even did an XCOPY of the system reserved partition onto my pre created partition and still no win.

I did do a DIR \A D: and can see that the system reserved partition does hold the boot files. For some reason Windows on a Samsung cant access or load it.

Link to the guide i used:

GUIDE: How to install Windows 7 or 8 via USB on NP700Z* | NotebookReview

 

[Barman58]

When you installed onto the HDD or added the boot partition did you go into the bios and set the system to boot from the drive with the boot files on? The system must be told where to find the boot files, especially if the drives have changed in any way. To do this the drive with the boot on must be set to first in the bios drive order

 

[GoldenDog]

does this work with any bootable USB?