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    Bootmgr is missing.. Help!

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by calfly, Feb 9, 2012.

  1. calfly

    calfly Newbie

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    It happened when I was trying to update windows 7 service pack 1 which wouldn't install.

    One of the things I tried to do to troubleshoot was setting the C:drive as "mark as active" under disk management. (the part with 3 partitions: C drive, Recovery: and a 40mg one)

    I can't figure out how to revert this change when the comp won't boot and I am unable to f8 recover.

    help!
     
  2. ExMM

    ExMM Notebook Evangelist

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  3. Brian K

    Brian K Newbie

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    If the above suggestion doesn't work are you familiar with using Diskpart?
     
  4. calfly

    calfly Newbie

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    I'm not familiar with Diskpart.

    What I think is wrong is that the comp is trying to boot from cDrive when the boot files are in the recovery partition or something.
    I don't think i have a modified C: because I'm a complete amateur and wouldn't know how to modify it.

    I haven't gotten a chance to follow on Yukinok's suggestion yet but ill update tomorrow how it goes.

    thanks for the input!
     
  5. Brian K

    Brian K Newbie

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    You are correct. Win7 isn't meant to be the Active partition in your computer. The Active partition is the one that contains the Booting Files. With Dells the Recovery Partition is the Active partition.

    If yukinof25's suggestion works, fine. Otherwise we can fix it with Diskpart.
     
  6. calfly

    calfly Newbie

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    Okay im in a bit of a jam.

    My laptop is a m11xr1 and doesn't have a built-in disk drive. I attached a new external cd drive with my recovery disk but the disk doesn't even read. I think it's because the comp doesn't have the drivers to operate and can't auto install the drivers b/c i can't get into windows.

    I'm not familiar with diskpart, how should I approach this now?
     
  7. Brian K

    Brian K Newbie

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    Can you boot from a USB flash drive? Do you have Win7 on a flash drive or a WinPE on a flash drive?
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Newbie

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    It doesn't matter if you don't have those apps. If your computer can boot from a flash drive (I'm sure it can) we can have your problem fixed in a short time. But it might take several posts from you to describe what you see on your monitor when you run an app I'm going to suggest.
     
  9. redrazor11

    redrazor11 Formerly waterwizard11

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    Yes, you'll need to format a bootable flash drive. In most cases you can put the windows recovery suite on there, and just run it as if you were running the windows disk recovery.