Fix BootMgr is Missing Error Message

BootMgr is Missing

So you've got a new Vista/Server 2008 (Server 2008 was the culprit in my case, but I've read of it happening on Vista as well...) install on your desktop, and you reinstall to finish some updates. As you're booting, you hear a beep, and see: "BOOTMGR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart." Crap. What now? The Windows repair disc doesn't fix it, and you're not sure what to do.

As best I can tell, Serv08 just got confused between my IDE and SATA drive, and even though it installed Server 2008 to my SATA drive, it dumped the boot files on the IDE drive. Why? I'm not sure.....but it did. Thus, the error.

Using the Repair Disc, I loaded into the Command Prompt, figuring that I'd need to copy files over. The problem is, what files should I move?

First, I needed to find out where everything was:

• c: to switch to the C drive.
• dir /a to view all the files. The "/a" switch is to show the hidden ones (the files you are looking for, listed below, are hidden).
• d: to switch to the D drive.
• dir /a to view all the files there.

What you're trying to find is your BOOT folder and the BOOTMGR, since this is what's missing. Then you also need to find the WINDOWS folder, since the BOOT and BOOTMGR need to be on that drive.

Once you know that, you need to copy them....

• c: to switch to the C drive, or wherever you determined the boot files to be.
• xcopy /h bootmgr d: to copy the BOOTMGR file to the D drive, or whichever drive you need to copy them too. The "/h" switch ensures that you'll include hidden files, which is important.
  
• robocopy c:\boot d:\boot /mir to copy the entire BOOT folder from the C drive to the D drive. The "/mir" grabs the entire directory and its' sub-folders and files, keeping the same file structure.
  

Sure enough, once I moved those files over, everything booted up fine. Thank heavens.

Review: Windows 7 Beta pt 2

There was so much cool new stuff in Windows 7, I decided to make a second post. This is more of a "Here's where you can go for more info" kind of post, and I'll update it as I find better links, but a good one is here, at the How To Geek's site.

In addition, here's the information from Microsoft's help site on getting to know Windows 7:

Review: Windows 7 Beta pt 1

As soon as it was announced that Windows 7 beta would be available for a limited time, I knew I had to grab it. I did, and threw it on an older laptop I had. The laptop doesn't meet the requirements (it's only a 1.7 Mhz proc, 768mb of RAM, and a 32MB video card), but I wasn't about to throw it onto a live machine and have it die. It is a beta, after all.

This isn't going to be a review of under the hood features. This is more of a review of the shiny chrome additions, like the new rear-view mirror, or the new stereo.

So, where to begin? The desktop, of course.


Obviously, there are a couple of things that jump out right away. It's based on the look of Vista, but with changes. The icons are bigger, and the taskbar is bigger, which is nice. Also, you can pin icons on the taskbar easily. Another nice thing is that sticky notes are built in. You can see a couple there on my desktop.


The next change I love is the ability to close items straight from their taskbar icons.


You also have the ability to customize your taskbar with simplicity. I know you could customize it before, but not as simply.

And you see that flag? That's the new action center, a way to control which messages Win7 sends you. Don't want to see backup information? Okay, turn it off.


UAC has gone through an overhaul as well (let all users of Vista rejoice!), allowing the user specifically how tight to control their machine:


All I can say about that is that it's about time.


The calculator has been overhauled as well, allowing built-in conversion tools, a programming calculator (with binary, qword, dword, and other tools), and lots of other changes.

And the speed? Even on this 'slow' machine, it's nice and peppy. I can only imagine what it would do on my beefy machine with a dedicated video card, an AMD x2 proc, and 6GB of RAM.

My favorite change though is the auto-fill and auto-split. If you drag a window to the left, it will auto-fill only the left side. Same with the right side. If you drag it to the top it will fill the whole screen. That's awesome, especially for people with large monitors, like myself.

So, my decision? I will be upgrading. I like Windows 7. It took some major work to get a WEP2 driver on this laptop, but it's a beta, so I'll cut it some slack. Other than that, I have 0 complaints.

For a beta, it's stable. It's almost cliche at this point, but Windows 7 is everything Vista should've been, and more.