bootmgr missing... but that wasn't the real problem.

[moosteve]

i have 2 hdd.. i recently removed a thired, the same time i reinstalled vista.

wd 500 and a 300 gb raptor.

main hdd is the 500, raptor is secondary. last week i reinstalled vista and instead of letting vista create the windows.old file and save, i formatted the c: drive and reinstalled. then i got the "bootmgr missing" error message on boot up. if i set the bios to boot from the raptor, though, it booted fine. i knew this was odd, but i never really had time to investigate.

so today i was getting more into it, decided to reinstall vista, put it on the first active primary partition...same thing.

triesd to repair via vista dvd and command prompt, but it cannot find vista on the c:... it says it is on the d:, so the repair process won't work.

i did a dir on the c: and the d:... sure enough,

dir of d: shows all of the windows programs,

dir of c: shows data storage files.

but it still reports that d: is the 1st partition of the wd 500(primary) and that c: is the 1st partition of the raptor(secondary).

once in vista, everything is where it is supposed to be, including in the disk management dialogue.

i hve no idea what happened or how to proceed. any ideas?

[LMHmedchem]

There is a free program call super grub disk that you can often use to fix boot issues. Burn it on a CD and boot from it, it will give you some options for trying to automatically repair the boot stuff.

LMHmedchem

[moosteve]

Originally Posted by LMHmedchem

There is a free program call super grub disk that you can often use to fix boot issues. Burn it on a CD and boot from it, it will give you some options for trying to automatically repair the boot stuff.

LMHmedchem

thanks. i still might grab that and look at it as the vista repair utility... well, i'm not a fan.

after much messing around in command prompt windows and drudging up dos commands from the back of my mind, i got the bootmgr file and the boot file(i was missing bcd file from this) into place, and i can boot from the wd 500.

weird though, the vista partition is still identified as being D:.

i must have messed up my partition table when i removed the third hard drive? i have no idea if this needs fixing. the whole reason this odyssey started is because my computer all of a sudden started hanging coming out of hibernate, which i attributed to looking at the wrong hard drive because of the messed up bootmgr.

[PommieB]

The usual reason for those problems, people tend to install windows with other drives connected and the boot files can end up on other drives, such as your third drive, so it's best remove (usb, flash etc drives ) and disconnect all the internal drives, with the exception of the drive you intend the os to be installed on, it will also be the C: drive as no other drives will be present.

You could have tried using the Vista os disk and repairing the ndlr file, if that didn't work, then third-party software, but as you got it sorted with the command line, well done.

[Trinitynzxt]

Originally Posted by moosteve

i have 2 hdd.. i recently removed a thired, the same time i reinstalled vista.

wd 500 and a 300 gb raptor.

main hdd is the 500, raptor is secondary. last week i reinstalled vista and instead of letting vista create the windows.old file and save, i formatted the c: drive and reinstalled. then i got the "bootmgr missing" error message on boot up. if i set the bios to boot from the raptor, though, it booted fine. i knew this was odd, but i never really had time to investigate.

so today i was getting more into it, decided to reinstall vista, put it on the first active primary partition...same thing.

triesd to repair via vista dvd and command prompt, but it cannot find vista on the c:... it says it is on the d:, so the repair process won't work.

i did a dir on the c: and the d:... sure enough,

dir of d: shows all of the windows programs,

dir of c: shows data storage files.

but it still reports that d: is the 1st partition of the wd 500(primary) and that c: is the 1st partition of the raptor(secondary).

once in vista, everything is where it is supposed to be, including in the disk management dialogue.

i hve no idea what happened or how to proceed. any ideas?

all you have to do is pop in the vista cd and run a repair. It will fix the issues, as I actually had this same problem today. If you google it you would have found the answer as its the first link.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/

step by step instructions.

[moosteve]

Originally Posted by PommieB

The usual reason for those problems, people tend to install windows with other drives connected and the boot files can end up on other drives, such as your third drive, so it's best remove (usb, flash etc drives ) and disconnect all the internal drives, with the exception of the drive you intend the os to be installed on, it will also be the C: drive as no other drives will be present.

You could have tried using the Vista os disk and repairing the ndlr file, if that didn't work, then third-party software, but as you got it sorted with the command line, well done.

yup, you are right. eventhough i had reformatted a million times with multiple hdd installed, this last time i formatted the C: instead of letting vista save the windows.old file and removed a hdd and i screwed everything up. the command line fixed it, but the second hdd still had the boot files on the drive, so it was still messed up. removed the second drive, reformatted, and that aspect of my problems was all good.

Originally Posted by Trinitynzxt

all you have to do is pop in the vista cd and run a repair. It will fix the issues, as I actually had this same problem today. If you google it you would have found the answer as its the first link.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/

step by step instructions.

i know how to use google and i found that info, and it was not "all i had to do". the problem was more complex.
--------------------
however, the root problem which led me to this whole mess was the fact that i was having system hangs when resuming from hibernate. i assumed this was caused by confusion due to the hard drive issues. not so.

i have the drives completely fine, everything is where it should be.

the hibernate problem. i have had an overclock of cpu @ 3.9ghz, cpu/nb @ 2800 stable. it is what i have been using, trouble-free as i have always used my rig. now, when i resume from hibernate, the system will hang. three red leds on the 4870, hdd light still working.
after about 2 to 5 minutes, if left to itself, it will wake up and go to the post page like it should, where the system hangs on initializing usb.
if i have the same 3.9 ghz and reduce the nb to 2600, everything is fine. wakes up great.

things i have tried:
reflashing BIOS
a million cmos clears, with battery removal
15 reinstalls of vista. i did not use a ghost image for fear of a corrupted file or something. i have also tried it with and without updates.
ATI drivers from 9.8 to current 9.11
checkdisk shows no errors.
both vista and mem-test say all ram checks out at rated 1600 mhz and timings, both stock cpu and overclocked with 2800 NB.

doesn't matter what the cpu or ram is set at for speed with a 2800 NB. the 2800 NB is the deal breaker.

this used to work with no problems. why would an overclocked NB cause problems with waking up?

what a ****ing waste of a weekend.

[LMHmedchem]

Personally, I have always turned of most of the power management options. I never let my computer sleep or hibernate. I often run long batch background processes (sometimes for days), and I have never ending problems. Apparently, running a background process wasn't enough to let the d**n thing know it wasn't supposed to hibernate, or sleep, or whatever. Maybe I don't know what I am doing, but I found it easier to just turn all of that off. I just shut my computers off at night if I am not using them, I figure that saves more power anyway.

Have you tried dropping your CPU multi to work one getting your NB overclock fine tuned? If you drop the multi, then you are just overclocking the chipset, not the CPU or RAM, and that can sometimes help you find the right tweaks to keep it stable.

LMHmedchem

[moosteve]

Originally Posted by LMHmedchem

Personally, I have always turned of most of the power management options. I never let my computer sleep or hibernate. I often run long batch background processes (sometimes for days), and I have never ending problems. Apparently, running a background process wasn't enough to let the d**n thing know it wasn't supposed to hibernate, or sleep, or whatever. Maybe I don't know what I am doing, but I found it easier to just turn all of that off. I just shut my computers off at night if I am not using them, I figure that saves more power anyway.

Have you tried dropping your CPU multi to work one getting your NB overclock fine tuned? If you drop the multi, then you are just overclocking the chipset, not the CPU or RAM, and that can sometimes help you find the right tweaks to keep it stable.

LMHmedchem

i hear what you are saying about the power management stuff, but two things...
these are my habits and how i have always done things

and yes, i could shut down instead, but it wakes faster than it boots, and sometimes i leave the computer, forgetting i was doing something. hibernate will bring ne back right to where i was.

the other things is, this did work. these exact settings, 12 hour stable in occt, has been running for a week or so normal with no issues. so, of course, i want to know what changed or if something is broken.

and in amd, the is the 200 reference clock(FSB), but the cpu, NB, ram, and ht all have seperate multis, so i can overclock any by themselves. i tried reducing cpu and leaving NB, but it still happened.

i understand this is not the biggest earth-shattering problem on the forums, but its driving me bonkers.

[vistageek92]

I've had this happen as well. Everytime its been when i have taken the computer apart and then put back together. I got it fixed once..but the other time i had to totally re-install vista. And I tried booting in the vista install disk and repairing windows, but that didn't work. I think what it really comes down to, is having your Bios set correctly for multiple HDD's. I changed around some options in the bios and its never done it again to me.