Boot mgr is missing press ctrl +alt+del to restart

[moziconnect09]

i am a newbie as far as computer hardware is concerned. after struggling for days to install windows 7 onto my new pc which came without and 0s installed,
specs are:

hp pavillion elite m9255.uk
amd phenom 9500 quad core
4gb ram
1tb hard drive ( comprised of 2 500gb hard drives)
note 1 of them i made a partition of 30gb where i installed the win 7 OS the rest of the 465 used as storage for my files.

the other 500gb i left untouced which on disk management is unused incase i do decide to dual boot a mac os on that one.

i was using my computer for almost 2 days installing all my files and softwares etc when suddenly it shut down on me and when i tried turning it on it said

Disk boot error please insert system disk and press enter

i tried changing the boot order in the BIos
open the cpu casing unplugging blowing and re plugging the cables to the hard drives in.
however on the bios both hard drives are listed and wen i check status says that they both okay

i tried booting using the installation disc trying start up repair no luck with that
went into command prompt option
tried typing in
diskpart (enter)
lis vol (enter)
it list the 465 which i use for storage but the 30gb where the 0s is installed dosent show. surely if the hard drive had a problem the 465gb wouldnt show as it an te 30gb makes up te 500gb?

i tried
selecting the 465gb volume enter and then exiting diskpart
then it says

BOOT MGR IS MISSING PRESS CTRL +ALT+DEL TO RESTART

so basiclly i have read almost all forums concerning this and followed most of the steps listed above for however mine says boot manager missing or corrupt, wen ever i run start up repair its says

start up repair cannot repair this computer automatically.
sending more information can help microsoft create solutions.

please do help me out as i have seen that almost everyone you helped so fars problem has been solved.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello moziconnect09, welcome to Seven Forums







As a place to start, will you please post a snip/screen-shot of the entire disk management drive map so we can see what you have going on as there may be a fairly simple way to resolve the situation.

In the Windows start menu right click computer and click manage, in the left pane of the "Computer Management" window that opens click disk management and post a snip of that.


How to Post a Screenshot in Seven Forums

 

[moziconnect09]

thank you for welcoming me, i appreciate it..
i cannot access disk management as the windows operating system wont even load once it gets pass the hp welcome screen a black screen comes up with the message:

BOOT MGR IS MISSING PRESS CTRL +ALT+DEL TO RESTART

is there another way around?

thank you in advance

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Have a look at the tutorial at the link below to see a method to do a startup repair to Windows; you may need to do as many as 3 separate startup repairs with a system restart between each repair to repair the boot files.

If that doesn't work you may need to mark the Windows partition as "Active" for the repairs to complete, have a look at option Two in the tutorial if the first idea doesn't work.

Be sure to post back with any questions and to keep us updated.


Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

 

[Night Hawk]

Changing the boot order wouldn't help from the start if the 30gb primary has somehow lost the MFT. The drive appearing in the post screen and seeing some indication of a startup show the drive is working ok while the boot sector or volume information may become corrupted somehow.

If the BCD information or boot file was lost or corrupted you could run the startup repair tool 10 times and still get nowhere in a hurry. This is when you have to resort to the Windows Recovery Environment while booted from the 7 dvd. "How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows" is the MS information on how to use the tool for rebuilding the BCD as well as the boot sector and mbr information.

The instructions there will get you past the limitations seen with the startup repair tool. Hopefully you will be back up and running in no time.

 

[moziconnect09]

hi thank you to all that have replied so far i really do appreciate it
night hawk you are right i have run start up repair several times but no luck still same error when i do restart.
saying: BOOT MGR MISSING PRESS CTRL-ALT-DELETE TO RESTART

I think i know what the problem is i went into command prompt from the repair menu
typed in :
diskpart enter
list volume enter
and the list shows the 465gb ( which is the storage partition containing my music,image,video files) the other half of the 30gb forming 500gb is healthy
and 4gb usb form which i installed the OS system instead of dvd is also healthy
the 30gb containing the os installation however is not listed anywhere

so as i said originally have made the 465gb active which obviously as no microsoft os installation in it this maybe why the error BOOT MGR MISSING PRESS CTRL -ALT-DEL TO RESTART comes up

so the question now is how do i locate the missing 30gb ( on which the windows 7 ultimate x64 is installed on) in the diskpart and make that active?

also is there a way of accesing disk management prior to the os system running and entering (start up,etc)
as i think the original reason for the problem from the very start is the 30gb partition may not have been set as the primary c: and the 465gb is instead?

thank you to all in advance for taking the time out to reply and help me towards solving my beloved pc.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Have a look at the tutorial at the link below to see a method to do a startup repair to Windows; you may need to do as many as 3 separate startup repairs with a system restart between each repair to repair the boot files.

If that doesn't work you may need to mark the Windows partition as "Active" for the repairs to complete, have a look at option Two in the tutorial if the first idea doesn't work.

Be sure to post back with any questions and to keep us updated.


Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

Did you have a go at this Option Two to mark the partition as active and then try three startup repairs with restarts again?

 

[moziconnect09]

hi barefoot kid yes i tried option 2 but once again the disk listed is 465gb instead of the whole 500gb or the 30gb( containing the os installation)
so couldnt select it and select which partition to make active

also tried downloading the partition wizard bootable cd and same issue only the 465gb is shown.

so where might the 30gb and does that mean i may have to re-install all over again?

thank you in advance

 

[gregrocker]

If only 465gb shows for that HD where you installed Win7, then you may have deleted the partition somehow.

 

[Night Hawk]

465gb is what you would expect on a 500gb drive as far as any OS will see as available drive space. If you start up the 7 installer up until the drive tools become available that will show all drives and partitions on them when selecting the format option.

You should see the 30gb plus an approximate 430+gb second partition you planned to use to store files on. The repair tools option should have already detected any 7 installation present and listed that when going in there for the startup repair if the partition table is still good.

Noting one thing here:

i tried
selecting the 465gb volume enter and then exiting diskpart
then it says

DiskPart should have been showing 30gb less then that amount if the 30gb wasn't turned back into a "raw" drive space for some reason. What did you use originally to partition the drive with? The drive tools for the 7 installer or a 3rd party program?

 

[moziconnect09]

hi night hawk no originally it was 495 gb then i saved the os on 30 gb leaving me with 465 gb which i use for file storage.

i tried inserting the installation cd and going to the install windows 7 menu and when it gets to select driver/ partition on which to install the os again only 465 gb is shown.
i used the windows software to partition it from the start then once it was up and running went into disk management from the start up menu and made the 465 active.

and greg rocker i think you may be right the partition with the os may have been deleted or corrupted somehow as this was prior to me installing my anti-virus software. and the computer shut down while in the middle of using it.

i tried what you posted on the other thread the partition wizard shows just the 465 gb and tried running the recovery bootable cd but its not booting i will try putting it on a usb and see then update you on whats happened

thank you once again

 

[moziconnect09]

FIRST OFF let me apologise i am very sorry as i did originally note i am a newbie as far as computer hardware is concerned.Remember i said the partition with my os is missing and only 465gb is showing?
also remember i said i have 2 SATA HARD DRIVES INSTALLED 500GB EACH turns out the one wit the os and my storage files which shut down while i was using my pc is the entire drive that has gone missing and my other unused one is the one now showing up.

i found this out by trying to reinstall window s7 on the 465gb showing once i got into start> disk management the other missing disk is shown but however named as disk 0: with a red arrow pointing downwards in a cirlce.
it wont initialize when ever i try to and keeps saying incorrect function?

is there any ting i can do to recoevr the data on it or initialize it ? or better yet whats wrong with it as it shows up in disk management and my bios? when i try updating the driver says the driver tools are up to date.

please help thank you in advance.

 

[Night Hawk]

This is why I was mentioning a possible corruption of the partition table. When the av program installation was inprogress and you saw a sudden shutdown you may have seen a drive fail on you?

Since the drive is being seen it sounds more likely that the partition table may be toast resulting in turning the entire drive into "raw material" but not available to reinstall Windows onto. When in the Disk Management tool look at the left side to see if the drive is seen as "online" or "offline".

If offline right click on the small square and select online and then right clcik on the main volume to select the Add New Volume option. This will bring up the wizard for that where you then select a drive letter available like F or G leaving D and E set aside for the optical drive.

 

[moziconnect09]

hi i believe you may be right from the started , it does not say offline but however says NOT INITIALIZED and wen i try to initialize a window pops up saying INCORRECT FUNCTION
when i try selecting the offline option the same window pops up what do i do now?

and thanks for the quick reply i really do appreciate alot.

 

[Night Hawk]

First check the drive's data cable even try another. The drive is being seen but a shaky cable will prevent it from a normal use. Make sure the plug at the board end is down fully.

I had one drive I thought was toast that kept disappearing and found the cable was the problem after cleaning the case. I either bumped the cable or a blast of air from the air cleaner had lifted it slightly!

A simple swapover of the cable "known to be good" from the other drive would also show if that's where you problem is. If you suddenly see Windows making the attempt to load without the other drive plugged in you found the problem.

If not on the other hand you may have to use a live method for data recovery if the drive itself is where the problem is. A drive diagnostics tool from the manufacturer would be another thought if swapping the cables doesn't see results right off.

 

[moziconnect09]

HI i have just finished swapping the cables with the ones from the other hard drive and guess what it still does not work i take it there is no problems with the cables but with the drive itself.

i ran a system diagnostics using f9 at the hp welcome screen all other hardwares ram, cd/dvd rom , etc are working fine and seem to pass the test first time however when it gets to the secound hard drive on the other hand once it reaches 93% it goes back down to 70% this happened twice and then test cancelled , then it moved on to the next one.

so i guess the question now is how do i go about doing this:

"" If not on the other hand you may have to use a live method for data recovery if the drive itself is where the problem is. ""

once again thanks in advance ...

 

[gregrocker]

Try to copy out your data using this method: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93347-copy-paste-windows-recovery-console.html

If this method using the Win7 DVD or REpair CD fails, then burn to CD Paragon Rescue Disk to attempt to Recover Partition, then Recover Data: Rescue Kit Free Edition | PARAGON Software Group - free partition software, hard disk partitioning

Run the HD maker's full diag/repair CD scan on each HD plugged in separately. Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

then run from DVD/CD: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html

 

[Night Hawk]

Did you try only having that one HD plugged in by itself to isolate it? With the second drive unplugged that would force the first to made the default hard drive. With a known to be good cable plugged and not seen that's not so good and suggests a problem with the drive or port on the board itself.

If the drive is still found unusable your options start to become limited for data recovery since that would point to a problem drive. Bad sectors or even heads gone would still tend to see a drive listed in the bios, post screen test, and even in the DM with 7 on the second drive but... not good!

For the Windows methods that would be setting up the second working drive as the new OS host drive and installing a data recovery software(partition recovery programs run about $70!). Freewares like Recuva won't work for this being on a separate drive to start with where the if so factor regarding the partitions are in question.

For the live disk method the best while not always familiar to many is booting up with a live Linux distro(Debian based) like ubuntu, Puppy, or Knoppix in order to first see if the drive is viewable and perform copy and paste operations in order to save files from the effected drive onto your new host OS drive there.

The live cd option is a working OS on it's own and has it's own file browser if you are able to see the two partitions mounted. If the drive is still working and not toast the live distro will be able to see right onto and access the otherwise invisible partitions in many cases.

Note if the partition table was squashed you are limited even further to the dreaded DrFreeware Fedora based open source nightmare data/partition recovery tool which mixes "everything" together including system files all renamed into endless folders. On one machine it was tried on try going through over 1,100 folders named data 1, data 2, ...

The last professional option is a data recovery service equipped to open the drive casing up in a controlled environment to recovery everything savalageable from hte platters directly for anything the servoce was able to recover. $$$$ along with more for replacing the drive!

The live distro option is less costly for burning a live cd or even unpacking or custom installing a distro onto a usb flash drive. An old discussion on how to go about creating a live recovery stick or other option for live data recovery can be looked over in the thread for this. http://www.sevenforums.com/chillout-room/11844-using-other-os-usb-rescue-device.html

One last thing to note here would be hearing any lclicking sounds from the drive itself. That would point to failure where the arm for the heads is slapping up against the main spindle for the platters where either a data recovery service would be the obvious or simply scratch off recoverying anything.