Windows 8 Boot Problems

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StevieT

702 posts

Ultimate Geek

#119366 29-May-2013 16:08

Purchased a desktop off Trade me, and successfully place an image of our old hard drive from the other desktop onto the new computer. However, before doing so, when turning the desktop on I would get 'BOOTMGR is missing. Press any key to restart'. I would press any key, and it would boot into Windows 7 fine.

The same message appeared after imaging Windows 8 32-bit onto the computer. I thought about trying to fix the BOOTMGR issue by booting from a disc repair DVD for Windows 8 32-bit and going to command prompt. I typed in, in order listed below:
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
(It detected 1 Windows Installation)
bootrec /rebuildbcd
(Resulting in:
Total identified Windows installations: 1
[1] C:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/No(N)/All(A)?
I enter Y, resulting in "The requested system device cannot be found"

Now when I boot the PC and the 'BOOTMGR is missing. Press any key to restart' message appears, I get the following error after pressing a key:

File : \Boot\BCD
Error code: 0xc000000f

All I want to do is boot into Windows 8 without having to press any key, and now more issues are appearing.

How do I go about fixing this master boot record? I've gone to http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/how-the-windows-8-automatic-repair-feature-works/7335 (opening SrtTrail.txt results in an empty Notepad file opening) and http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistadeployment/thread/8647c865-59a2-44dc-8be2-1a65731bbe38.

Many thanks,
Stevie

CYaBro

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#827822 29-May-2013 16:15

Have you run any tests on the drive to make sure it is not faulty?

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StevieT

702 posts

Ultimate Geek

#827866 29-May-2013 16:48

I've just run chkdsk in the command prompt recovery mode, and the result was that the program found problems.

However trying to run chkdsk /F to fix them cannot proceed.

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.
Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected.

Ragnor

8218 posts

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#827867 29-May-2013 16:49

What did you use to create the image? Does it have specific options for creating an image that can be restored to different hardware?

Suspect it's a problem restoring to dissimilar hardware.

StevieT

702 posts

Ultimate Geek

#827875 29-May-2013 16:58

The missing boot manager message (BOOTMGR is missing. Press any key to restart) was appearing even when I turned the PC on for the first time (i.e. before the imaging was placed onto it). It then booted, after I pressed a key, into Windows 7.

It booted fine when the image was on, and extra issues only started when I tried to do away with having to press any key to boot into Windows 8, because 'BOOTMGR is missing. Press any key to restart' was still coming up.

StevieT

702 posts

Ultimate Geek

#827877 29-May-2013 16:59

Ragnor: What did you use to create the image?

Used Windows 7 File Recovery tool in Windows 8 Pro 32-bit.

StevieT

702 posts

Ultimate Geek

#827898 29-May-2013 17:44

Having done a repair of the disk, where errors were found, using the command C: /f /r /x, I still get the same error File: BCD...

The guy who sold me the computer claims that if Windows installation was successful, then I wouldn't get a boot manager message telling me to press any key to start. However, the message was present when I first turned the computer on upon receiving it. It had Windows 7 trial edition installed, so would that mean it didn't install successfully?

macuser

2120 posts

Uber Geek

#827900 29-May-2013 17:51

I used to get this on my SSD when I did a hard shutdown... only option to fix was to run the dell bios hardware diagnostic...after running that on the system check, I could then boot properly again.

Don't really know why it worked...but it did

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surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#827918 29-May-2013 18:09

StevieT: Purchased a desktop off Trade me, and successfully place an image of our old hard drive from the other desktop onto the new computer. However, before doing so, when turning the desktop on I would get 'BOOTMGR is missing. Press any key to restart'. I would press any key, and it would boot into Windows 7 fine.

Many thanks,
Stevie

I seem to recall getting some error like this when I went into disk management and accidentally marked a partition as active on a temporary drive.

Possibly your old computer had 2 drives , and one was marked active. It means that windows might be looking for the old drive.

If this is the case you still have the old drive then maybe you could temporarily connect it. Not totally sure though :)

From memory, I had to use diskpart to do something to change the active partitions but was a long time ago so maybe i am wrong.

StevieT

702 posts

Ultimate Geek

#827928 29-May-2013 18:35

I saw on a webpage references to DISKPART commands.

How would one enable the volume that Windows resides on is the volume that is booted from (i.e the computer knows it contains the MBR). The command help prompts weren't particularly useful, considering I don't know how to refer to the hard drive in the commands to have some action take place.

This issue only occurred (not the original ''BOOTMGR is missing. Press any key to restart' which was present before the image was transferred from the old desktop to the new one) when I tried to fix said BOOTMGR is missing message, using bootrec / commands in recovery mode (booting from recovery DVD).

Ragnor

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#828417 30-May-2013 18:05

I think you'd best off formatting and doing a clean install of Windows on the new hardware/desktop, then restore user stuff eg documents, favourites etc from your backup.

urban

487 posts

Ultimate Geek

#836104 13-Jun-2013 00:15

Ragnor: I think you'd best off formatting and doing a clean install of Windows on the new hardware/desktop, then restore user stuff eg documents, favourites etc from your backup.

I did exactly just that last weekend.

Cloned my old 1TB drive onto a 2TB, neither Win7 or Win 8 would boot up as it couldn't find the bootmgr... after a few hours of cussing I gave up the ghost and reinstalled from scratch.

michaelmurfy

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#836112 13-Jun-2013 01:02

Before you somehow make this desktop catch fire, burning your house down in the process - do a fresh install, as in format the drive.

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surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#836138 13-Jun-2013 08:15

StevieT:
Now when I boot the PC and the 'BOOTMGR is missing. Press any key to restart' message appears, I get the following error after pressing a key:

Possibly you moved a copy of your OS to a new machine where it cannot see 'active' partitions from the old machine.

Start your old machine and open computer management / disk management. Check that only the OS drive partition is marked 'active'. Probably it is the 100mb system reserved partition.

If you do not include ALL active partitions in your OS image, then you will get the BOOTMGR missing error.

Maybe you didn't clone the 100mb system reserved partition, or you have 2 active partitions. If the latter, you need to use DISKPART to remove 'active' status on a partition.