Boot Mgr missing and unable to repair

I'm having some serious trouble with Win 7. I was trying to reclaim some unallocated space on the drive and in the process seem to have lost boot manager, so it won't load Windows.

If I put the disc in, it's not able to automatically able to repair because it says the repair disc I'm using is not compatible with the OS I have installed. This is the same disc I used to install Win 7 in the first place. Tried using cmd prompt to reload boot manager manually,and it completes the operation successfully but still says bootmgr is missing at start up.

What's scaring me is that if I try to just install Win 7 again (onto the unallocated space), the hard drive just turns off and the hdd light comes on solid. This is when I choose 'Install Now' from the opening screen before selecting partitions etc. I'm typing this post from a spare hdd. The only thing I can think off at this point is the get an enclosure and recover my files; then wipe the hdd in question and reinstall Win 7.

I would really appreciate any help anyone can give to avoid that route though.

Thanks.

Boot from the Win7 DVD Repair console, press Shift F10 to open a command line to mark Win7 partition Active using DISKPART: Partition - Mark as Active

Now boot back into Repair console to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Win7 starts, which it should do if it is marked Active and not irreparable: Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

If it won't start, boot back into Command Line and try to jump start the Repair by typing:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec/exe /fixboot

Then try running Startup Repair X3.

You can copy files out of unbootable Win7 using DVD and this method: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

If forced to reinstall, wipe the HD first as you likely have old code from a previous OS on there which needs overwriting with at least one set of zeroes: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Thanks Greg, I'll try that. I should mention that I ended up in this situation by marking my boot partition 'Active' when trying reclaim about 100gb of unpartioned space. This was in Partition Manager within 7.

What was marked Active before? What exact changes did you make?

Is it possible that that nothing was marked active? There was a 200gb boot partition and 100gb unallocated. When trying to extend the volume, it wouldn't allow me to recalim that 100gb. Right-clicking the boot partition gave an open to mark it Active; so I did that. Restarted and here we are.

So there were no other partitions or drives attached, just the 200gb Win7 partition and adjacent 100gb unallocated it wouldn't let you annex?

Can you boot the Win7 DVD, press Shift F10 at first screen, then type the following and post back results:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK 0 (confirm this is Win7 disk#)
DETAIL DISK

Post back everything it says for each partition.