Help with "Bootmgr is missing" error

This isn't specifically a CoH issue, it's a 'nothing freaking works at all' problem, which definitely impacts CoH as well. So I'm hoping that someone can offer a suggestion.

My son's laptop has been giving him (and me) problems for some time, including the Windows installer and the media player not working--it's on Win 7 64 bit, btw. After backing up his hard drive, I tried to use the system recovery disk that came with the computer to fix the problems. Got an immediate error message--as in getting the word 'error' in red letters 4 inches high.

Restarted, got a 'BootMgr is missing' error. After some internet research, I tried to boot from the recovery disk and a boot disk to try to fix the problem. No dice, got the same message even when I changed the boot order in BIOS to the DVD drive. His DVD drive has been flaky anyway, so I got a cheap external USB DVD and tried to boot from *that*. Same message.

Next I tried removing the HD from his laptop entirely and putting in my desktop to see what's going on. HD has nothing on it--when the heck did that happen? It turns out I have a spare install of Win 7 on hand, so I format the laptop HD and put it back in the laptop, planning to completely reinstall Win 7. No good, got the same "BootMgr" message and it refuses to boot from the Win 7 install disk or a standard boot disk.

I'm stumped. All the fixes I've seen for this message assume you can use a boot disk to run some sort of recovery or installation software, which I am not able to do. It seems to be recognizing the external DVD drive--once I got a "press any key to boot from the drive" message, but then it went directly to the "BootMgr is missing" error. All I can do before getting the message is to open BIOS, and nothing there seems to any help in resolving the problem.

Help! Any suggestions other than dropping the laptop off a bridge--which I am sorely tempted to do--would be greatly appreciated.

HOW did you back up the hard drive?
If you already have all his files off it and the drive is showing blank, you're probably going to need to reinstall.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I'm not the most reliable source but....

I think motherboards have onboard memory with the BIOS essentials loaded in.
It sounds to me like your motherboard is missing essential software, the "BootMgr".

It could be a bad motherboard, maybe due to overheating or whatever reason, now so that you may need a new laptop/computer.
I don't know though.


Can you call the laptop's retailer/manufacturer for support?

I had this error once. It usually happens when some files for the Windows boot manager are corrupted or misconfigured, causing the computer not to recognize it properly. Here are some possible solutions for fixing it...the startup repair worked for me, but it offers some other solutions as well.

Sorry if this is abrupt. On my,phone.

Probably you cannot boot off the cd because you are set to boot off the hd first.
You should be able to do f10 or f12 during boot to choose a boot device.

Or F1 to edit the bios to boot off the cd first.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Ok, here's the sequence of events I would use. First, make sure that the CD drive is the first boot device by entering the BIOS (press delete at bootup, or f1 or f2 depending on the BIOS) and going to that section. Different BIOS' are laid out differently but there will be a 'boot order' setting (or words to that effect) somewhere. Set it so that it reads:

Primary Boot Device: CDROM
Secondary Boot Device: Hard Drive

Then save changes and exit BIOS.

After that put the Win7 disk in the drive and reboot. It will come up with a prompt to boot from CD, accept that and let the computer boot up from the CD. It'll take a bit while it runs through a long list of things then you'll be prompted to setup windows. At this point I would select the drive I wanted to install to, then I would DELETE THE PARTITION on the hard drive and let Windows create a new one then format and install. That should solve your problems; if it doesn't then I would suspect a bad/failing hard drive.

Actually from your description of the problem I wouldn't be all that surprised if your drive did take a dive... if so it may be a good excuse to drop in a new SSD or at least a faster conventional drive. I've had a HD get flakey on me before causing some weird windows issues then suddenly on a bootup dump it's MBR effectively wiping it clean. That only happened to me once but it can happen and it does kinda sound like the symptoms you're describing. If you do get windows to install I would watch the machine closely for a while to see if the problems reoccur and if they do I'd replace the HD.

Sounds like the boot files weren't copied to your recovery disk

On a Floppy - remember them - you could format with the /SYSTEM flag to create a bootable disk this formatted the disk and then copied the boot files

I'm assuming your recovery disk is a CD or DVD though so your best option may be to try booting from a Windows install disk - one reason I always recommend getting original media and not settling for recovery disks or worse a recovery partition.

The windows installation CD should be able to repair the boot manager files. Do a repair instead of an install.

most system restore cd are not the same as a windows 7 install cd they use a cheap version of ghost to copy back the info. I had this error many times in our shop. I dont know why microsoft does it but they put some info of the os that installed onto the master boot record. if the data damaged or set wrong the os wont boot. just use the widows tools disk and do a fdisk/mbr then delete all the other partion. you can then run the restore cd to put back the factory image on the laptop or use your windows cd installed. Also to let you know ms puts out a usb iso free tool that if you have a good copy of windows will make a bootable usb iso on a 4 gig usb stick. good if you think your sons cd-rom has reading issues.

After you do all that run a scandisk using the "fix bad sectors" option checked on all drives so that it will check everything on the next boot. Hopefully the reformat cleared up the issue, but you never know.