Bootmgr Missing?

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vhubb

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Hello Everyone,

I need some help with a laptop I've been working on for a friend. When she brought me this laptop to look at, I wasn't able to open anything without it freezing up. It would startup up fine and get to the desktop but when I would try to open a program or go into the settings the window would freeze up and it wouldn't do nothing. So I would have to restart and it would end up doing the same thing over and over. I'm thinking it was probably where she hadn't updated it like it should be updated.... she said she hadn't updated it since she had it and she's had it for quite some time. I tried to go to windows updates and I couldn't even get there without it freezing. I was able to go into safe mode and I run Malwarebytes and it didn't find anything so I'm thinking it didn't have any virus's or malware. The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite 64-bit upgraded to Windows 10. She wanted me to set it back to Windows 7 home edition which was what it had before the upgrade to Windows 10. The option for returning back to Windows 7 is no longer in the setting section. I had a Windows 7 home edition OS disk of my own and her product key for her Windows 7 Home edition was on the bottom of her laptop. So I inserted my Windows 7 Home edition for 64-bit and tried to complete a clean install on her laptop using her product key. I have done this many times with older OS (Windows Vista and Windows 7) on other computers and I never had any problems. But first time trying on Windows 10.... I deleted all partitions to install the new OS on...as I always had before. But when it gets to the installation, it has a check mark by the "Copying Windows files" and when it gets to "Expanding Windows files (0%)..." it stays at zero percent and then gives a error message.

"Windows cannot install required files: Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x8007045D."

When I press "OK" it then goes back to the beginning to either try to repair your computer or to install now. I tried repairing using recovery tools (no OS showing) and then Startup Repair but it attempts to repair but says, "Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically". When I tried to restart the computer it has a black screen when it tries to reboot and says says "BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart". When I do this it just keeps going back to this screen. I seen a fix while searching the internet for missing BOOTMGR that said to use the following command prompt to fix mbr and boot so I tried running the commands:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot

It says all was completed successfully but when I go back to try to repair or reinstall... nothing changes. What else do I need to do to be able to get windows 7 back on her laptop.

Thanks,
Veronica
 
When you started the reinstallation, did you format the disk ?
Not the "quick" format, which just resets the tables to look like the disk is empty, but a proper format which actually scans the disk surface, reformats all the blocks, finds dodgy areas and takes them out of commission ?
The error message is implying some kind of i/o error, so it could be the target partition has a problem (the format should get round that) or your DVD.
Do you have an alternative DVD ?
Also, when you formatted the disk, did you set the target partition for W7 "active" and fill the whole of the HDD ?
Is there another HDD ?
The reason I ask is that I have had similar problems in the past (though I don't remember the error code) where the install was trying to put the boot files somewhere other than the W7 partition and couldn't find enough space for a successful completion.
The problem with W7 is that it was the first Windows OS to default to putting boot files away from the rest of the OS (for potential bitlocker encryption capability), and went to great lengths to achieve that end, even shoe-horning the boot files into data space on a separate drive.
To force it into the W7 space, you mustn't leave it the possibility of going anywhere else. Disconnect all other HDDs and make sure that all the space on the target drive is allocated to W7.
 
When you started the reinstallation, did you format the disk ?

No, I didn't format the disk. When I booted from the DVD I clicked on drive options and deleted both partitions which then left one unallocated partition.

Not the "quick" format, which just resets the tables to look like the disk is empty, but a proper format which actually scans the disk surface, reformats all the blocks, finds dodgy areas and takes them out of commission ?

So... do I need to reboot from the DVD and have it to format that partition and try again? When I go back to this section it has two partitions:
Disk 0 Partition 1: System Reserved 100 MB total size 860 MB free space and the type is System
Disk 0 Partition 2 298.0 GB total size 297.4 GB free space and the type is Primary

Should I have formatted Partition 2? I just went back to that partition and it doesn't give me an option to format it. Delete, Format, New, and Extend are all grayed out. When I click on Partition 1 the options to Delete and Format light up to choose one of them. But at the bottom it says Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 1 because the selected partition requires at least 8437 MB free space.

The error message is implying some kind of i/o error, so it could be the target partition has a problem (the format should get round that) or your DVD.
Do you have an alternative DVD ?

No I do not have an alternative DVD...

Also, when you formatted the disk, did you set the target partition for W7 "active" and fill the whole of the HDD ?
Is there another HDD ?

No, I didn't format the disk and I didn't set the target partition for W7 "active". No, I only have the one Hard Disk Drive.

The reason I ask is that I have had similar problems in the past (though I don't remember the error code) where the install was trying to put the boot files somewhere other than the W7 partition and couldn't find enough space for a successful completion.
The problem with W7 is that it was the first Windows OS to default to putting boot files away from the rest of the OS (for potential bitlocker encryption capability), and went to great lengths to achieve that end, even shoe-horning the boot files into data space on a separate drive.
To force it into the W7 space, you mustn't leave it the possibility of going anywhere else. Disconnect all other HDDs and make sure that all the space on the target drive is allocated to W7.

What can I do now since I didn't format the disk before I installed windows? Maybe this is why it didn't work for me this time. It has been a while since I reset OS to a clean install but I was thinking I always just deleted the partition and installed that way.

Thanks,
Veronica
 
So... do I need to reboot from the DVD and have it to format that partition and try again? When I go back to this section it has two partitions:
Disk 0 Partition 1: System Reserved 100 MB total size 860 MB free space and the type is System
Disk 0 Partition 2 298.0 GB total size 297.4 GB free space and the type is Primary
This shows that my speculation that you might not have enough space for the boot files was not the case.
W7 has successfully done what I said it always attempts. It has created the separate "System Reserved" partition for the boot files, marked it "active" and installed the boot files to it (the "system" flag indicates so).
Unfortunately, I had forgotten that W7 has removed the quick/full option from the installation DVD setup which was present in XP. (forgive me, it's been many years since I last had to install W7), so you wouldn't have had the option I suggested.
Another unfortunate change, is that my go-to freeware partition manager has removed the option to create a bootable version from their latest free version. Luckily the previous release is still available elsewhere
Partition Wizard - Bootable CD 9.0 - Software reviews, downloads, news, free trials, freeware and full commercial software - Downloadcrew
so you could always use that to do a full format of the C drive before trying the installation again from scratch.
If that doesn't remove the I/O error and allow the install to complete successfully, then I'd suspect a problem reading your DVD.
One of the other moderators here, Peter (Ex_Brit) might be able to help you with a different copy of W7. I believe he might have a link to a cloud stored copy.
If not (it might have been Vista he uploaded), then a judicious search of the internet might possibly point you at another available ISO to be used with a user's own key. (but be warned of course that the source must be trustworthy or there's no telling what other untoward nasties might have been included)
 
This shows that my speculation that you might not have enough space for the boot files was not the case.
W7 has successfully done what I said it always attempts. It has created the separate "System Reserved" partition for the boot files, marked it "active" and installed the boot files to it (the "system" flag indicates so).
Unfortunately, I had forgotten that W7 has removed the quick/full option from the installation DVD setup which was present in XP. (forgive me, it's been many years since I last had to install W7), so you wouldn't have had the option I suggested.
Another unfortunate change, is that my go-to freeware partition manager has removed the option to create a bootable version from their latest free version. Luckily the previous release is still available elsewhere
Partition Wizard - Bootable CD 9.0 - Software reviews, downloads, news, free trials, freeware and full commercial software - Downloadcrew
so you could always use that to do a full format of the C drive before trying the installation again from scratch.
If that doesn't remove the I/O error and allow the install to complete successfully, then I'd suspect a problem reading your DVD.
One of the other moderators here, Peter (Ex_Brit) might be able to help you with a different copy of W7. I believe he might have a link to a cloud stored copy.
If not (it might have been Vista he uploaded), then a judicious search of the internet might possibly point you at another available ISO to be used with a user's own key. (but be warned of course that the source must be trustworthy or there's no telling what other untoward nasties might have been included)

Hi Terry60,

Thanks for all your help. I figured out the problem last night and could kick myself because it was such an easy fix.... When she had Windows 10, before the reset, I was sure it showed 64-bit.... I don't know if I was seeing things or what or if maybe it required a different bit or something when I reset the PC. After I rebuilt the boot manager and tried again to install Windows 7 with no success I decided to try using the 32-bit disk... just to see if it would install correctly. It worked great! Is it possible that if the PC had a 64-bit in windows 10 that I would need to use 32-bit to reset with WIndows 7 or did I just misread the bit type in the beginning?

Thanks,
Veronica
 
I don't remember whether the W10 free upgrade allowed going from 32 to 64 bit, since I was already x64 on all systems for some time and wouldn't have come across the possiblility, but it seems, whatever W10 might have been, that your friend's key was for a 32 bit W7 build.
Glad you got it all sorted anyway. Sorry I wasn't any real help.
Your friend owes you a nice dinner.
 
I'm glad to hear that you were able to resolve the issue by using a 32-bit version of Windows 7. It's indeed essential to match the bit version with the product key. If you have any more questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask. Your friend must be relieved to have a working laptop again. paybyplatema
 
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