Missing Boot Manager

MalcolmB

Member
Hi,
I'm new to this forum and the vista operating system and as the title says have a problem with the missing boot manager that I hope you can help me with.

I have built a new PC from a barebone system, I installed a 250G sata drive intending it to be used as the primary with vista running from it. I also installed a 60G IDE
drive from my old computer that was only used for backing up my data so no operating system on it.

I have a Vista OEM Home Premium DVD, when installing firstly it didn't like the sata drive but selecting some of the options offered windows suddenly said it had everything it needed to install, this it did, removed the DVD and booted into Vista and everything appears to be working fine.

On looking at my computer however, I notice that I have vista installed on the "C" Drive (the 250G sata drive), and the IDE is the "D" drive, but I notice from vista drive manager that the system files are on the IDE "D" drive. Drive Manager shows:
Disk 0: SATA1 250G two equal partitions drives C(healthy, boot, pagefile, active,crash dump, primary partition) and E(healthy, primary partition)
Disk 1: IDE 60G single partition drive E(healthy,system,active,primary partition)

BIOS is set to boot from the 60G drive. If I now try to change the boot priority in BIOS to boot from the SATA drive I get the dreaded "Missing Boot Manager" error and of course restarting does not solve this. Changing the boot priority back gives me vista again.

So the golden question is "Can EasyBCD solve this for me and what steps do I need to take to move the boot manager files to the sata drive ?"

I have looked through your forum and seen similar cases where members have had dual boot problems etc.....and have been given instructions to use the repair function of the installation DVD, rebuild the BCD so on and so forth, but being an OEM version DVD I am not sure if this facility is there and am somewhat apprehensive about the whole thing in case anything goes wrong.

Could anyone please help and offer simple step by step guidance in either the use of EasyBCD or otherwise ?

Thanking you in anticipation.

Malcolm
 
The OEM DVD is exactly the same as a full retail version.
The serial number sets limitations as to future use, (no moving it to a new upgraded set of hardware) but in all other respects it's the same.
It is bootable and will repair your system boot for you.
 
Hi,Thanks for those replies will try that later but just to be clear at what point exactly do I need to change the HDD boot priority, is it before I place the DVD in and boot from it ?And also should I start with the step 2 option and carry on from there or leap into the command prompt options ?Regards,Malcolm
 
Change your BIOS boot sequence to be CD/SATA/IDE. (you can do that now - with no DVD in the drive and no boot files on the SATA, it should end up on the IDE anyway.
Disconnect your IDE drive temporarily so that it can't be seen, boot from the DVD and follow the instructions from this post.
When the SATA is booting by itself, reconnect your IDE disk. (you can delete the bootmgr file and boot folder from the IDE then, if you want to reclaim the space.)
 
Hi CG and Terry,
Thanks so very much, it worked a treat only having to do the repair twice. My next objective is to put XP onto IDE drive E and then dual boot so that I can load up my XP applications that are not compatible with Vista until I can afford to upgrade them all.
Any advice on doing a dual boot before I commit(over the weekend probably) ? I have seen lots of advice on all the forums with doing this on 2 partitions of the same hard drive but not on two physically different hard drives so any pointers would be very welcome.
Once again many thanks,
Malcolm
 
If you're installing XP after Vista on a single HDD, XP will overwrite the MBR and destroy the Vista boot, which would then require repairing. (at which you are now an expert).
Installing XP after Vista on a second HDD, gives you the luxury of being able to disconnect the Vista HDD, do a clean XP install to the second HDD which will then be bootable as a standalone system.
When you then connect the Vista HDD and put it 1st in the BIOS, the Vista boot will still be intact and in charge.
Just copy the 3 XP boot files from the XP root to the Vista root, start EasyBCD, add an entry to the Vista BCD for the XP system, edit the Vista copy of boot.ini to make rdisk (0) rdisk(1) in both places, and you should have a working dual boot. (leave everything on the XP HDD untouched and it will always function as an emergency backup in future if you put it 1st in the BIOS boot sequence, should Vista's boot ever break or the Vista disk go u/s)
It's all described in the wiki, with all the common problems (and their fixes) described in the troubleshooting section.
 
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