BOOTMGR is missing – Startup Error On Vista

Posted on August 19th, 2007 by Jason

I don’t know how prevalent the problem is of Vista displaying the error message “BOOTMGR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart”, but I wish I’d seen this fix from Cybernet a few weeks ago. The way I temporarily solved the problem was to boot my machine with the Vista DVD inserted EVERY TIME. I decided this was a bad idea as my DVD drive is temperamental and prone to chewing up discs, so I ended up doing a full rebuild as I didn’t want to risk my Vista Disk.

To fix the problem the sensible way, do the following:

1. Pick your language and continue onto the next screen.
2. Choose the option in the bottom left corner entitled Repair Your Computer:
BOOTMGR Repair
3. Choose the Windows installation you want to repair.
4. Choose the Startup Repair option and the problem will be solved!BOOTMGR Repair

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Windows Vista. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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15 Responses to “BOOTMGR is missing – Startup Error On Vista”

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  3. B. Gebeyehu on 24 Oct 2007 at 8:24 am #

    I was having vista premium in my laptop after a while it was asking me to activate it by activating key but I did not have a key (I got the recovery CD from my laptop supplier) then after I formated by DOS then when I am going to instal again it gives me a comand BOOTMGR MISSING restart by ctrl + alt + dele.

    Still I am in problem and I can,t recover my laptop.

    With regards

    Gebeyehu

  4. Manuel on 22 Mar 2008 at 10:16 pm #

    How are you meant to do what you just said above if you dont have the windows vista installation cd…

  5. Greg on 06 May 2008 at 6:12 am #

    I too have had this BootMGR missing!

    I bought my new PC without an operating system, scince it said all over it to install vista I did that.
    on the first day I got the blue screan which said restart windows with vista DVD.

    On restarting I got “bootmgr missing”.

    I could not boot from the cd/dvd even when I selected that option from the bios menu, it began to boot from the cd then said “bootmgr missing” pleased press…ctl..atl del.

    The only was I have been able to boot the computer is from cd without the hard drive attatched. Once the windows installation has started reattatch the hard drive.

    This then gives the istallation options.

    Unfortunately vista can not fix my proble it says “#£”£**XX”, I was not happy!

    Through a few menus, I got to option to reformat disk, great just start again.

    Alas once you have vist on the computer getting rid seems difficult.

    I used the vista cd to boot in command propt formatted c: drive form there, as well and I still get this bloody message “bootmgr can not be found!”

    Any help please!!

    I don’t want to go and buy a new hard drive yet.

  6. Diba on 17 May 2008 at 7:24 pm #

    I’ll start this off by saying that I do not completely understand computer software.

    I installed vista recently and its been giving me alot of problems. Today, I got a blue screen and when I tried to restart, it told me “BOOTMGR is Missing. Press ctrl+alt+delete to restart”. My keyboard wasnt even working for some reason so I tried restarting a few times. Didn’t work. So this is what did:

    I went to the BIOS menu, and chose the BIOS settings. One of the options, I believe it was “BOOT Priority” or something along those lines, had an arrow next to it. I changed the order of the BOOT startup and restarted and it worked. I really hope this works for you guys.

  7. Floris on 03 Dec 2008 at 9:21 am #

    If your computer is booting from Windows Vista,then you might get the boot time error message “BOOTMGR is missing”.This Windows boot time error actually occurs due the reason of many issues like the presence of another operating system and other hardware issues, such as whenever you insert a new hard disk drive into your computer or change the current hard disk drive configuration from master to slave or slave to master.Also some other unknown hard disk drive issues causes this problem.

    After getting this Windows Vista boot time error, your computer screen constantly displaying the error message as:

    BOOTMGR is missing press ctrl+alt+del to restart.

    Since this issue comes at the booting phase of Windows Vista so we can’t fight with the computer by changing few settings in the operating system because you simply don’t have access to operating system.If you want to fix this Windows boot time error without reinstalling the Windows Vista operating system, then simply follow theses simple steps.

    Insert your Microsoft Windows Vista installation DVD into your DVD drive and click next
    Now from the opened menu choose the option “repair your computer”
    The installation process will automatically attempt to find your Windows Vista installation directory.After finishing this process click next to continue.
    Choose a recovery tool->startup repair.Now the Windows Vista installation process will try to repair the system, and then prompt you to reboot your computer.
    If you want to use the Command Prompt option instead of above steps, use the following command to fix the boot options only: bootrec /fixboot
    After this just restart your computer,your Windows Vista will start working without any problems.Enjoy!

  8. Jennifer on 12 Dec 2008 at 3:19 pm #

    I have searched and tried everything. I was recieving the “bootmgr is missing” error and so i downloaded a windows recovery cd as an iso image, put that into my pc, restarted it, and it took me through the steps of restoring my pc. However, after I click “Repair your computer”, it attemps to find my operating system, Windows Vista, but nothing shows up. I try clicking on the “Load Drivers” button, but that doesn’t help me at all since it brings me to a bunch of folders and I dont know what to select. So I click “next” even though there wasn’t any operating system selected, and it still brings me to the same point as in the intructions above. I try to Start Up repair, but it says it cannot repair it automatically. I try the command prompt, bootrec /fixboot, and it says completed succesfully but when i restart get the same issues.
    I try rebuilding the bcd, but it doesn’t detect my windows vista.
    Is there any hope? Have I lost all of my personal data? My whole life is in this computer!!!
    Pictures, finances, resumes, projects…. I can not duplicate these things!
    Please, Please, Please!!!! Someone help me!!!

  9. Ainsley Dennis on 16 Jan 2009 at 8:09 pm #

    Is there anyone that has a solution to Jennifer’s problem. I have the same issue exactly. No OS shows up when trying to do “repair your computer”. If I try to do a re-install I get ” Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation”.

  10. itwiz on 19 Jan 2009 at 4:49 am #

    1. Get the Ophcrack ISO download.
    2. Burn the ISO image to CD /DVD disk
    3. Boot PC with Ophcrack and you should be able to see the HD files.
    4. COPY all required files to USB stick!
    5. When files are saved on USB, Reinstall Windows and copy the files back.
    6. NB Computers make it VERY easy to copy a lot of data so anyone that has important data should REALLY make another copy on removable media like CD or USB (or several if it took years to accumulate). THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN POINTS OF USING A COMPUTER.

  11. Christopher on 04 Feb 2009 at 1:35 pm #

    I have the same problem as Jennifer and Dennis. Have either one of you found a solution? I’m trying to load any OS but nothing will load.

    Thanks

  12. Daniel on 08 Feb 2009 at 6:01 am #

    I have the same problem on my gateway laptop. The first time I tried the repair, my OS (Vista Home Premium)did not show up, but I hit next anyways. It did a scan and once it finished, I rebooted. It didnt work so I tried again and this time it showed my OS. Rebooted and it didnt work again. I tried to recover several times afterwards.

    I have tried using the command prompt with instructions from the internet with no luck….

    However, after many reboots later, I no longer get the “BootMGR is missing” problem…I get the “missing hal.dll” problem.

    So now im not even sure if the bootmgr problem is fixed. Or maybe it is fixed but the hal.dll problem is not letting me boot up either.

    I have searched long and hard on how to fix both of these problems and cannot find an answer.

    Anyone have any ideas?

  13. Anshu on 11 Feb 2009 at 12:19 pm #

    Same problem here “BOOTMGR IS MISSING…”

    I have tried systems repair – fails
    then i attempted to fixboot & rebuild through command prompt – again failed
    no system restore point was found (Laptop is new)
    I dont want to install vista again – upgrade is disabled

    plzz help

  14. chris on 11 Mar 2009 at 5:40 pm #

    same as above,but dissconnected the hdd and restarted.then reconnected and it booted ,the disk was by then corrupted and at to reformat

  15. psychoTECH on 12 Nov 2009 at 8:55 pm #

    Use this link and this will help you guys!

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

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