Boot Manager, missing from formatted Hdd.

[Bertison]

Long time since I posted here I know.
Building a budget system for my son. Details:
Originals: Corsair case, Sapphire AMD HD5670, LiteOn DVDRW, 2x 140mm front fans, 1x 120mm rear fan and 1x 120 mm top fan. 500Watt Thermaltake PSU, tested with my trusty old PSU tester, all rails OK.

New bits: Gigabyte A320M-S2h mobo, AMD Ryzen3 1200, 1x 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2400 MHz. All fans and lights including graphics card kick in at start.

This build needed when his ancient Gigabyte ATX board blew its cookies. Phenom IIX4 HSF and CPU are still good, selling on hopefully. His 1TB Samsung Hdd was blown along with the board and I had a good Seagate 1TB that I had used once before replacing with a 2TB WD Blue that is in my system alongside a Sandisk 480GB SSD. The 1TB SG was working fine before I formatted it.

Tried to install the SG 1 TB to son's new build and install Windows 7 Home, which began to install but then the USB mouse and Keyboard stopped working and I could not proceed past US KB settings. Trying to install Win 7 gave the message "Boot Mgr Missing. Press Ctrl - Alt -Delete to start." Nothing worked. Installed the Hdd in my old but good ICYbox external Case and reformatted. Where do I go from here please? Can't get mouse and KB working to install Win 7 from the disc, which will replace Boot Manager. I'm stuck!

 

[SIW2]

Is this still a question. It can be done, one way is to use ps2 mouse and keyboard.The ps2 connectors are on the back panel of that mobo.

Or you can use this
Windows 7 Image Updater - SkyLake\KabyLake\CoffeLake\Ryzen Threadripper - VideoHelp Forum

Windows_7_Image_Updater

Or after installing using ps2 mouse and keyboard, you can install the 3000 series usb3 mod drivers from here:

https://www.sevenforums.com/attachm...7-installation-media-amd-usb3-300-prex570.zip


Extract the zip
In device manager, right click the unrecognized USB controller "Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller" and choose "Update driver software"
Choose "Browse my computer for driver software"
Click "Browse" and direct it to the extracted folder
You will be prompted to install the driver software. Choose "Install anyway"

 

[Megahertz07]

Win 7 installation disk doesn't have SATA, MVMe and USB3.x drivers. For new motherboards you need to add them to the Win 7 installation disk.

Also you have to set BIOS properly.
- Update your BIOS to the latest version
- Set OS to "other"
- Set Fast boot and secure boot to disable.

Win 7 can be installed as Legacy-MBR or EFI-GPT.
To install as Legacy-MBR you MUST boot the installation disk as Legacy
To install as EFI-GPT you MUST boot the installation disk as EFI
You must delete ALL partitions on the disk. It will be created the necessary partitions.
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html?filter[2]=General Tips
SIW2 is the guru for installing Win 7 on new MB.

 

[Bertison]

Thank you for all the advice.

Think I may have solved it. I was actually trying to install Win7/64 from disc without installing Gigabyte drivers first, which is what the Giga manual advised. I removed the Hdd, installed it into my Icybox case and used my PC to take a look at it. Admin Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management informed me that there was no MBR partition on the Hdd.


I formatted the Hdd again and switched off the case when Format finished, which is not what I did at first format. Restarted the case and Hdd: there was a small MBR partition. That's where I am at now, going to perform the medical procedure I have to do every day, shower and return to try again. My problem is that I have a very small room with limited space to work. This means that I have to strip one machine of cables, move it somewhere, install the other machine in its place. More time -consuming than it might appear, especially with a couple of disabilities. I shall persevere!

 

[SIW2]

I assume you mean partitioning style. A disk needs to be initialized as either mbr style or gpt style.

 

[Bertison]

I assume you mean partitioning style. A disk needs to be initialized as either mbr style or gpt style.

Yes thank you, after some research of Microsoft pages, I have now realised that I should have initialised the disk as GPT and not MBR. I am going to convert the disk by Diskpart in command prompt.

 

[SIW2]

If you want to install win7 in efi mode, use gpt.

If you want to use bios mode, then mbr

 

[Megahertz07]

Yes thank you, after some research of Microsoft pages, I have now realised that I should have initialised the disk as GPT and not MBR. I am going to convert the disk by Diskpart in command prompt.

You don't need to initialize, convert the HDD to GPT or use Diskpart.

During POST, launch the Boot MENU and select to boot the installation disk (USB flash or DVD) as EFI.
Go to install - Advanced and delete all partitions on the disk then proceed.
The installation wizard will set your disk as GPT , create the necessary partitions and install Win 7 64bits as UEFI-GPT