Windows 7 installation: Missing operating system after using imagex.

Hello all,

First of, I like to introduce myself as I am new on this forum.

I'm an IT proffesional, currently going learning for my Configuring Windows 7.

I used windows 7 since the first beta came out, and I must say, I never was dissapointed by it.
But because I am learning I am trying to get all the computers here running windows 7, and I have a computer in my office wich I am trying to install it on.

There are a few problems thoug:

The computer only has a CDrom player, and cannot boot from a usb device.
When I first got it, windows XP was installed, and it only had 750 mb of memory. Stupid as I was, I decided to give it a try anyway installing windows 7 from inside Windows XP using an external DVD player connected with USB.

This failed, and gave me lots of error so I tried the next step.

As It cannot find a network share I had to instal windows PE on a CDrom and from there I could acces my extrernal HDD where I had a clean copy of windows 7 on as INSTALL.wim. I cleaned everything, and created everything from scratch with succes. Image X worked, and BCDboot worked. So it seemed to go great.

After restarting my system, it still will only give me, Missing operating system.

I tried to search on the internet but couldn't really find something related to my problem.

In the bios it says I can start from IDE CD-rom device, Diskette drive, Hard-Disk Drive c:, Integrated NIC (Disabled)

I bought some different memory and I am now at 1.5 mb DDR
It is an Intel Pentium 4 processor 2.4 Ghz Level Cachge 512 Integrated.

It's a DELL Optiplex Gx260 Series.

The boot menu gives me:
1. Normal
2. Hard-Disk Drive C: (Wich I used for my 100mb) (And I used D for my big partition and with BCDboot I used D:\Windows\System32\bcdboot d:\windows /s D: ) Wich worked because he did copy the files.
3. IDE CD-rom Device
4. System Setup
5. IDE Drive Diagnostics
6. Boot to Utility Partition

Whatever I choose, I can either go to the WindowsPE cd-rom or get the error.

I hope someone can help me out a bit. As I put much time in to this.

Sorry for my language but I am Dutch lol

Many Thx!

First try writing the ISO to flash stick using this tool with Win7 in the dropdown: Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3 then boot it under USB, Removable or HD's - however it shows up once it's bootable and plugged in and you access the BIOS setup Boot Menu or one-time BIOS Boot Selection menu.

If it truly can't boot USB (very rare) then boot the Win7 Repair CD, mark SysREserved partition Active if it isn't already: Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two)

Then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to correctly write the System boot files to the SysReserved (preferred) partition.

If this fails, change the Active flag to Win7 partition itself, try repairs again to see if it will start on its own.

You can also mark Active and see a picture of which is currently System Drive using free Partition Wizard bootable CD - the most valuable tool we use here to help thousands of users. After marking Active, click on the HD to highlight it, then from Disk tab select Rebuild MBR which may preclude the need to run Startup Repair.

Thank you for your help! I bought a USB flashdisk, but that didn't work. Then I made a repair disk and from there I ran the dos prompt after starting it on the computer.

From there I ran diskpart, did select volume and gave the active command. Then I booted my pc and it worked!! So for some reason it didn't work using the WINPE cd, but it did work with the repair disk!

Thank you very much!!

Are you saying it couldn't boot the USB stick? Saying "it didn't work" rather than telling us exactly what did or didn't happen doesn't allow us to help you get it right.

Were you able to find the stick to select it to boot under USB, Removable or HD's using the one-time BIOS boot menu key, or in BIOS setup under Boot order? If so did it prompt to "Press any key?"