A Tale of Woe, Sorrow, and the Vista Bootmgr (Help me Please!)

Hey guys, so I pretty much had the worst day ever, and in my persisistence to get ready for the win7 beta release, managed to kill my computer. Twice. I really need to vent, so I'll be posting this in a giant story form so that some of you others who are as annoyed as me about win7 making them waste their day waiting can at least get laugh out of my idiocy, but I will post a short version for anyone who might not mind helping me but doesn't feel like wading through a veritable swamp of text.

SHORT VERSION AT THE BOTTOM

Okay, so here's the deal. In my unbounded enthusiasm to try out the Windows 7 Beta, I decided that it would be an excellent idea to prepare by creating an extra partition off the considerable free space on my laptop's hard drive. At this point, my laptop's HDD was in two partitions: C (ALT), with approimately 90 GB of space, and D: (Unnamed) with approximately 200 GB of space. ALT is the partition with my current windows installation, but I figured that since Win7 would need to go on Unnamed, I should move some space over to ALT so that I wouldn't be storing files on another OS's partition to avoid confusion. I followed the instructions given to another user, and used the EASEUS partition manager to shrink one of my existing Unnamed partition and create free space, and then add it to ALT. For whatever reason, I was told that this could not be performed while the hard drive was mounted, and that I should restart so that the operation could be performed. Stupidly, rather than reading up, I went right ahead. My computer restarted, loaded into the EASEUS partition tool, and began installing. I sat around idly, twiddling my thumbs and bothering my roommate until I heard an obnoxious beep, and text on the screen saying something along the lines of "Partition task failed. Press enter to restart." Immediately, I regretted not backing up, but hoping for the best, I pressed enter. I was promptly greeted with the always-pleasant site of white-on-black BIOS text informing me that there was "No operating system found."

Figuring that I had very little chance that I had actually killed my files, I decided to pop in my Vista CD (Given to me with my NP8660) and tried a repair. No such luck, I was informed that "This version of Windows Recovery tools is not compatible with the version of windows blah blah blah... " Sighing, I went ahead and reinstalled Vista onto Unnamed. Strangely, the shrinking had apparently not occured, as both ALT and UNNAMED remained their original sizes. Upon finishing, once everything had been set up, I restarted, and lo and behold, beneath my newest installation of "Microsoft Windows Vista," a boot entry existed for "Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (Recovered)." Doing a little jig for joy and garnering a lot of confused looks from my roommate and some friends that were in my room, I booted into this newly recovered partition, and found that my ALT partition had been left untouched, and that vista still worked like a charm.

For the next few hours, I sat in front of my keyboard and F5'd, read through blogs, and got steadily more annoyed at Microsoft for not releasing that darned Win7 beta. Finally, as I realized that Microsoft probably won't release it today, I made my second collosaly stupid decision: I decided to try again. One would think that my experience would have taught me something: back up your files, do your research. But nope, I blithely went into Vista's built in partition manager this time, and managed to successfully shrink Unnamed. Hooray!. But now I wanted to format what remained on Unnamed, so that all the space would be available for Win7. At first, I was given some message about the "active partition being D: (Unnamed)" so I couldn't format it.

Well that thoroughly confused me. My operating system was on C: (ALT), what was D:\ Doing as the active partition? I blithely set C:\ As the active partition and tried again. This time was told that D:\ was the System partition, and those can't be formatted. Getting rather frustrated, I finally read the list of tags attached to C:\ and D:\. C:\ Was an "Active, Boot, Pagefile, Crash, Dump, Primary Partition" while D:\ was a "Primary Partition, System." Well that's silly, Clearly C:\ Is a system partition. Frustrated, I restarted, thinking that maybe that would refresh things. Note to self: When you change something: ALWAYS CHANGE IT BACK. I was once again greeted with BIOS text: "BOOTMGR NOT FOUND." And yes, it was an allcaps, almost as though my laptop was saying "YOU COLOSSAL BONEHEAD, WHY CAN'T YOU LEARN?" Sighing, I once again tried the recovery manager. I was informed that "An error was found in boot files. Fix and restart?" Overflowing with joy, I clicked yes. I restarted. "BOOTMGR NOT FOUND." Drat. I reinstalled windows onto D: (Unnamed) over the installation I had done just earlier today, and upon completion, lo and behold: There stood "Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (Recovered)."

Short Version:

Started with 2 partitions: ALT and Unnamed

1. Tried to shrink unnamed and add space to ALT using EASEUS, got to a certain point then told me something had failed and I needed to restart.
2. I restarted. "No operating system" error message from the BIOS.
3. I attempt a recovery console rescue of my Vista installation "This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with this version of Windows you are trying to repair."
4. I reinstall Vista onto D:\
5. Upon completion, I see "Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (Recovered)" in the BIOS OS boot options. I choose it. It is my original installation from the C:\ Partition. I rejoice, then screw it up again
6. Use Windows Disk management to shrink D:\ and attempt to format D:\. Am told I cannot format the active partition.
7. I set C:\ To be the active partition.
8. I am told I cannot format a System Partition.
9. I get angry
10. I restart, only to see "BOOTMGR NOT FOUND"
11. I reinstall Vista, again on "D"
12. After reinstalling, I once again see "Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (Recovered)"

I booted into it, looked around, everything seems fine. Then I realized that I should consult the experts here before I tried anything else, lest I put my system through another round of Vista reinstalls. As it stands, I have 3 volumes: ALT, WIN7, and about 100GB of unallocated space. ALT (C:\, the partition on which the currently running installation of Vista is located) is marked as "System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition."

Currently I have 2 working operating systems: one installed on the C:\ Partition, from which I am currently typing this message, and one on the D:\ Partition, which was the one that was installed for the sole purpose of having a bootmgr.

The C:\ Partition I'm on right now is the one I had before I got myself into this mess, with all data, programs, and settings intact, so that's why I'm afraid to restart-- restarting after changing the "Active Partition" is what caused my dillema with the whole "BOOTMGR NOT FOUND" message

My question is this: Seeing as how D:\ was the active partition before I attempted my scheme and changed the active partition, should I change it back to this so that my computer does not once again fail to find BOOTMGR on restart? What steps should I follow to safely format D:\? Thanks, and I hope you guys at least got a laugh out of my tale of woe :3.

 

lol dude no one is going to read this

 

That's why the short version is at the bottom, and contains just enough info for someone to diagnose the problem if they don't feel like reading my inane rantings

 

haha i see... good idea

 

1) Always back up.
2) Use the GParted LiveCD (link).

Cheers!

BTW, I did read through it.

 

Haha congrats on getting through the thing, but what I'm most curious about now is whether my computer is going to die if I restart -- prior to this, when I changed the "Active Partition" during my tinkering, I beleive I managed to set the active partition as the one WITHOUT bootmgr, thus royally screwing the pooch. Is this still the case, or is the Bootmgr on C:\ Now?

 

At this point, probably the best thing to do is this: get an external enclosure, pull the hard drive, put it in the external enclosure, then connect it to another computer and use that to backup/copy every file on there that you want to keep. Then, reformat the entire drive and start fresh.

If that is not a viable alternative, then I would try booting up with something like the Ultimate BootCD, or the Ultimate BootCD for Windows, or even a linux LiveCD, which will effectively result in your hard drive been treated as just another passive storage medium, and then backup/copy every file you want to keep to an external USB drive, and then proceed with a reformat and a clean reinstallation.

If even that is not a viable alternative, then I would try booting the existing system up, and then, if it does not have a valid active partition set, set the d:\ partition back to being the active partition and see if that accomplishes anything.

There is, however, one bright side to going with the reformatting route (once you've copied your files, that is) - you'll get the chance to setup your partitions on a clean slate, instead of trying to futz around with resizing existing partitions, although I would suggest having a third, separate partition for installing Win7 into, along with your existing C:\ partition, and a separate data-only partition.

Good luck, and post the results.

P.S., I also read the entire thing - I'm quite the artiste when it comes to long-winded posts (I'm also accomplished at long-winded, pointless posts, too, so I've got one on you there ) - having a short version at the bottom that is set off from the rest, and is pointed to at the beginning is also very good technique.

 

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "die". Do you mean your Vista installation? Shyster recommended pulling all the files you want off of there, but, since you'd already lost your first installation, and reinstalled, I was guessing you hadn't put much back on the new install worth salvaging.

You could try some of Shyster's suggestions, but I'll just point out that you can also use GParted to change boot flags. Anyways, I'd recommend you download it.

If you aren't worried about saving any data from your hard drive, the GParted LiveCD is bootable, so you can just select at the BIOS screen to boot from the CD, and then use it to reformat/partition everything, and start your installations anew.

Hope this helps. Cheers...

 

Haha thanks for the advice shyster. Yeah, I have all the data that I could possibly want all backed up by booting into the working OS and am ready to go so I might well take your suggestion of using a Linux LiveCD to wipe the drive clean. I've finally realized that the 3-partition is the way to go, because that way I've nothing to worry about data-wise should my operating system go kaput again. I'll let you know how it goes.

P.S. Always nice to meet a fellow poster who is as verbose as I am

I guess I hadn't really made it clear in the OP, but currently I have 2 working operating systems: one installed on the C:\ Partition, from which I am currently typing this message, and one on the D:\ Partition, which was the one that was installed for the sole purpose of having a bootmgr.

The C:\ Partition I'm on right now is the one I had before I got myself into this mess, with all data, programs, and settings intact, so that's why I'm afraid to restart-- restarting after changing the "Active Partition" is what caused my dillema with the whole "BOOTMGR NOT FOUND" message.

 

Oh, I see now. Yes...so it's working, no? And you're afraid you'll screw things up by restarting. Well, if worst comes to worst, you can change the boot flag (active partition) with GParted, or probably the Ultimate BootCD that Shyster mentioned.

 

Ah. Well that makes me a lot more confident. Thanks for the help guys, it was much appreciated