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BOOTMGR IS MISSING
PRESS CTRL+ALT+DEL TO RESTART

Note: This is a VM on VMWare ESX server, but that should not matter

I put in the 2008 R2 x64 install dvd and can get to recovery, but it lists no Operating Systems. Clicking on Next brings me to

+===========================
System Recovery Options
+===========================
Choose a recovery tool
Operating system: Unknown or (Unknown) Local Disk
.....

Command Prompt

I start the command prompt, go to C:\ and perform a dir /a

Apart from files I put there myself, these are showing

$Recycle.Bin
Documents and Settings [C:\Users]
Program Files
Program Files (x86)
ProgramData
Recovery
System Volume Information
Temp
Users
Windows

Where to go next? Is it like the NTLDR problem with Windows 2003 where I can just drop a file in there and it will be hunky dory again?

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5 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

It appears that there was a D: drive that can be accessed in recovery mode and the bootmgr file is there!

This got me going again. Not sure if the bootrec /rebuildbcd from Vick's answer was required, but that was already attempted before copying the bootmgr file.

D:\> attrib -h -s -r bootmgr
D:\> xcopy bootmgr C:\
D:\> C:
C:\> attrib +h +s +r bootmgr
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Try this: Type Bootrec /RebuildBcd while in repair mode, and then press ENTER.

if this will not work:

  1. Bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
  2. ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
  3. Bootrec /rebuildbcd

Restart the computer.

Based on this

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Thanks - it got me further. The OS is now listed in the first prompt when using repair from the dvd. However, still BOOTMGR is missing – cyberkiwi Feb 9 '11 at 22:45
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up vote 0 down vote

Try BCDBoot.

Boot from the windows CD then go to the command prompt.

Type

BCDBoot c:\Windows
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Thanks. I got it going by copying bootmgr from somewhere else. Seems like the same fix as the old W2k3 ntldr is missing issue. From a quick read, that looks like it does something similar to Vick's answer manipulating the bcd but doesn't mention recovering the bootmgr file – cyberkiwi Feb 9 '11 at 23:26
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You know why this fixed your problem? Because you have a recovery partition and obviously ignored it. You just needed to use diskpart and mark THE RECOVERY PARTITION (not Windows) as active.

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that would have gotten me booted into D:, but I would still have had to copy the missing bootmgr from D: to C:, which was the real problem. How Windows can lose NTLDR or BOOTMGR is beyond me – cyberkiwi Mar 22 '11 at 23:38
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I had the same thing happen to me, here is what I did:

  1. boot with the W2k8 R2 DVD
  2. BCDBoot C:\Windows
  3. Bootrec /rebuildbcd

Fixed the problem, and now in msconfig (System Configuration) under the boot tab, I see all my Windows installations.

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