ady199 Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 A mate of mine has just given me his Windows 7 laptop to look at - when he starts it up, it displays the following error message:- BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart I've tried the following to try and repair it:- Booted the laptop from Windows 7 DVD and went into Setup and clicked on 'Repair your computer' System Recovery Options couldn't find an operating system so I click on 'Use recovery tools that can help fix problems....................' I then clicked on Startup Repair - this ran but said 'Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically' When I clicked on 'View problem details' it showed the following (including other text) Problem Signature 07: MissingBootManager OS Version 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1 Locale ID: 1033 I then tried 'Command Prompt' and then tried the following commands:- (Rebooted after each option) bootrec.exe /fixmbr bootrec.exe /fixboot bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd None of these commands worked and I'm now pulling out my hair....I can't re-install windows because my idiot mate has saved all of his data on drive c! HELP!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris003 Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 If you want to reinstall just download linux and boot into a live cd then backup the data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noir Angel Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Did you also try bootsect /nt60 c: ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ady199 Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 If you want to reinstall just download linux and boot into a live cd then backup the data. I will try this and will report back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ady199 Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 Did you also try bootsect /nt60 c: ? Yep and no joy :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted January 7, 2014 Member Share Posted January 7, 2014 Did you try this: 1. bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup, press ENTER2. ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old, press ENTER3. bootrec /rebuildbcd, press ENTER-- http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/6889cf1b-17d3-4647-8e1e-edac6bc73c48/boot-manager-missing-window-7?forum=w7itproinstall If you try what Javik and I posted and no dice then I doubt there is much else you can do other than the Linux backup and re-install solution. This could be signs that there is something else at play besides just a corrupt boot loader (e.g. bad disk). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Praetor Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 You can use the official help from the Microsoft: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2622803/en-us Or you can use the MBRfix on Hiren Tools to fix the Boot manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ady199 Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 Thanks guys - I booted up a live version of Ubuntu to see if I could recover the data but the Windows Partition doesn't show, So I can only presume that this partition has become corrupted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggers Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Tried removing the BCD store before rebuild?bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backupren c:\boot\bcd bcd.oldbootrec /rebuildbcdReboot. Allthough sounds like you say, could be beyond help... Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ady199 Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 Tried removing the BCD store before rebuild? bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old bootrec /rebuildbcd Reboot. Allthough sounds like you say, could be beyond help... Good luck Thanks but when I go into the recovery options and command prompt and look on the c:\ partition all that's there is a directory called Temp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dot Matrix Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Can you remove the drive, and connect it to a Windows desktop machine? You're looking at a complete re-install of the OS, but you should be able to backup the data that way as a last resort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Berry Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Thanks but when I go into the recovery options and command prompt and look on the c:\ partition all that's there is a directory called Temp You just probably need to mount the partition. The easy method is to click on Files in the Unity dash, then look for your partition to be listed on the left side when Nautilus loads up. Just click the partition and it's mounted and you should be good to go! Alternately if it's not listed, there's a process you can use to find and mount the partition manually. All you need to do is open a terminal in Ubuntu and type in the following in... sudo fdisk -l It should list all partitions. If you see your partition listed then use the following command to mount it... sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdaX /~/Windows Change the /dev/sdaX field to exactly match your partition listed under boot device from the command above. If successful, your Windows partition *should* be mounted under the Home directory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted January 7, 2014 MVC Share Posted January 7, 2014 If it was me I would start by scanning the hard drive with Spinrite for bad sectors before I even start troubleshooting it. I actually have a laptop hard drive scanning with spinrite at this moment. It would just instantly reboot when it tried to boot windows. So far it's coming up clean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted January 7, 2014 Member Share Posted January 7, 2014 If it was me I would start by scanning the hard drive with Spinrite for bad sectors before I even start troubleshooting it. I actually have a laptop hard drive scanning with spinrite at this moment. It would just instantly reboot when it tried to boot windows. So far it's coming up clean. He probably doesn't have spinrite and you can lose data by causing sector reallocation if you use the wrong tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ady199 Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 You just probably need to mount the partition. The easy method is to click on Files in the Unity dash, then look for your partition to be listed on the left side when Nautilus loads up. Just click the partition and it's mounted and you should be good to go! Alternately if it's not listed, there's a process you can use to find and mount the partition manually. All you need to do is open a terminal in Ubuntu and type in the following in... sudo fdisk -l It should list all partitions. If you see your partition listed then use the following command to mount it... sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdaX /~/Windows Change the /dev/sdaX field to exactly match your partition listed under boot device from the command above. If successful, your Windows partition *should* be mounted under the Home directory. Thanks for the info but how do I open a terminal in Ubuntu? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Berry Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Ctrl + Alt + T Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unksi Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 It is one of the applications you get from their equivalent of the start menu. Just search for terminal and it should show up. Also, if that sudo mount command fails with a file or folder does not exist error, run this and it should work: mkdir ~/Windows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ady199 Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 How can I mount the following:- Device System /dev/sda2 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 W95 Ext'd (LBA) I just want to see what's on them Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Berry Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Let's try mounting the first one, shall we? Open Ubuntu's terminal and input the following... sudo passwd This command will allow you to set a password you can use when prompted for one. You'll have to input the password twice so make it simple and easy to remember because you'll need it for the next commands. Next, you'll want to use the command Unksi posted... sudo mkdir /home/ubuntu/Windows What this command does is creates the directory in the Home folder for which the partition will be mounted upon. Finally, use the following command to mount the partition... sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /home/ubuntu/Windows If that's successful with no errors, you should have access to that partition, hopefully. You can find it under the Home directory (just open Files from the Unity dash to access it). :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riahc3 Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Hello, Someone correct me if Im wrong but shouldnt his Windows 7 CD allow him to "upgrade" his Windows 7 installation? This would just reinstall Windows 7 without formatting the drive (assuming the FS is intact) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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