After my bootmgr was missing, I downloaded the Vista Recovery CD from Neosmart. I choose Automated Repair and got to see two hard drives (which is correct). With either one I can choose either System Restore or Automated Repair. I've tried both options with each drive, but unfortunately I keep getting the message: The selected partition does not contain a valid Windows installation. You've either selected a data drive, or the volume has been formatted and cannot be repaired.
On my question what to do next on the Neosmart-forum, someone advised me to type in testdisk. I did, but I'm completely lost what to do here. I followed some instructions from your wiki-page, but I'm not even sure what to do. I don't even know whether I'm posting this in the right category! So please excuse me if I'm not correct in this.
I choose Create a new log file and after that I saw three partitions, which is strange, 2 I knew of, but 1 of 42 mB is unknown to me. One extra problem is that I don't know which partition contains my Windows installation, because I've had two earlier crashes the past year (!) and a few hard drives were replaced. Anyhow, I choose one, but didn't get any notification of missing things. I did do a quick search, but that also didn't give anything. Now I'm busy doing the deaper search, but that is taking a long time.
I decided to ask for help first, because I simply don't know what I'm doing. Can anyone tell me which action I should be taking with my specific problem (bootmgr missing)?
bootmgr missing
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When asking for technical support:
- Search for posts on the same topic before posting a new question.
- Give clear, specific information in the title of your post.
- Include as many details as you can, MOST POSTS WILL GET ONLY ONE OR TWO ANSWERS.
- Post a follow up with a "Thank you" or "This worked!"
- When you learn something, use that knowledge to HELP ANOTHER USER LATER.
Before posting, please read https://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.pdf
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cgrenier
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Re: bootmgr missing
The 42 MB partition may be a small partition hosting a boot manager and system tools, it's far too small for Windows.
In TestDisk Advanced menu, try to list the content of the big NTFS partition. Does it work ?
Please post the information you have otherwise it will be hard to help you.
In TestDisk Advanced menu, try to list the content of the big NTFS partition. Does it work ?
Please post the information you have otherwise it will be hard to help you.
Re: bootmgr missing
I hope I did everything right. I choose menu option 'Advanced' and did get to see the largest disk (which I think is the programms and Windows disk). Next I choose 'List'. I think this didn't work, because I got the next message:
Support for this filesystem hasn't been enable during compilation.
Just to be sure, I tried the same for the other large disk (probably the data disk), but I got the same message.
I have to say that I'm not sure whether I made the right choice BEFORE I choose Advanced. Before, I got the menu where I had to choose the partition table type, and I'm not 100% sure what that means. I think I read in the instructions that the selected choice is in general the right one, so I did keep that selection, which was Intel/PC partition. I think it should be the right one, because the object in question is a HP pc (not an Apple or anything else).
Support for this filesystem hasn't been enable during compilation.
Just to be sure, I tried the same for the other large disk (probably the data disk), but I got the same message.
I have to say that I'm not sure whether I made the right choice BEFORE I choose Advanced. Before, I got the menu where I had to choose the partition table type, and I'm not 100% sure what that means. I think I read in the instructions that the selected choice is in general the right one, so I did keep that selection, which was Intel/PC partition. I think it should be the right one, because the object in question is a HP pc (not an Apple or anything else).
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cgrenier
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5418
- Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 15:08
- Location: Le Perreux Sur Marne, France
- Contact:
Re: bootmgr missing
Use latest version of TestDisk or the Windows 32-bit version to be able to list and copy files from NTFS partition.