BOOT MGR missing...

[Kylie]

My mom is freaking out! She has a eMachine, IDE Drive and etc., and I really don't know anything about computers so someone help us, PLEASE! As soon as you turn her computer on you see Boot Mgr missing...Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Which from what I have read is quite often for other people. You press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and it sends you to the screen with the big E and BIOS menu and BOOT menu. So everything in Bios is set to default, my mom doesn't have anything fancy on her computer just Vista. She has her recovery disk which obviously isn't working, her files aren't loading. It is prompting with errors like 0x8007045D. My first thought was maybe her files aren't loading to the right drive, like they are supposed to go to C:/ but are going to D:/ and therefore absolutely nothing is working. In BIOS menu, under the boot options the order is CD/DVD ROM, HD, Floppy and etc. Really I just don't have a clue, I sit there staring at the screen praying I don't make it worse just by looking around. So thanks for reading and thanks from my mom.

[Sylvander]

1. How to make a boot floppy disk that works for Vista. (http://www.multibooters.co.uk/floppy.html)
This floppy acts as the "System Disk" [rather than an internal HDD partition], and the copied BCD file specifies where the rest of the Windows files reside, and loads those, so taking you into Vista.
It's a temporary solution [that will do no harm] until you find a better fix given by someone more knowledgeable.

(a) Does your Mom's PC have a FDD?
If so the BIOS's boot menu would need to have FDD 1st in the list [with optical drive 2nd].

(b) Do you have access to another PC running Vista?
Or a floppy that has been fully formatted from within Vista?

(c) Do you have a bootable disk [like UBCD4Win (http://www.ubcd4win.com/)] that you can use to copy certain files off the Vista partition to the floppy?
In particular the BCD file must be the one from the Vista partition on the problem PC.

2. A more permanent fix the Microsoft way =
How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows Vista. (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392)

[Paul Komski]

She has her recovery disk which obviously isn't working, her files aren't loading.Is this a recovery disk or a Vista installation DVD? If the one you have is not functional then maybe you can borrow one that is functional. You should be able to boot to the DVD, choose Tools rather than install and then choose to repair the boot process.

Also check in the BIOS setup that both the DVD-Drive and the Hard-Drive are recognised there.

[Kylie]

We did absolutely everything that you recommended. In the Command Prompt menu everything seemed fine but it found no window installations, if that means anything. Also it starts with something like X:/Source, in the Command Prompt and we are not sure if that is correct or not. When you run the recovery disk, where you choose what to repair there are no options for us to click on. When you try to install the files it does fine until you get to Expanding files then nothing happens for a while and it sends you into the error 0x8007045D. I am trying to burn another recovery disk ask we speak for her PC and I have my fingers crossed. Do you think it could be lack of space? Thank you for replying it brought us hope.

[Paul Komski]

The X:/source command prompt is the normal prompt to see in the DVD Recovery Environment.

Presumably you entered bootsec /RebuildBcd at that prompt. If it then scanned the hard drive and found no installations there is something more fundamentally wrong with the file system, the hard drive or the vista installation or there is a need to install any SATA/RAID drivers at the prompt that gives you that option (http://www.windowsvista.windowsreinstall.com/vistaultimate/repairsystemrestore/repairsystemrestore.htm).

The hard drive's integrity can be checked from a diagnostic bootable floppy or cd from the website of the maker of the hard drive.

What to do next depends on whether you want to attempt recovery of any data that has not already been backed-up or whether to directly clean reinstall/attempt to repair the existing installation (http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88236-repair-install-vista.html) but repairing may still not be an option if the existing installation is unfindable.

If you want to attempt recovery of data and if you want a more independent way of checking the partitions on the drive then either detach it and add it to another computer or try Knoppix (link in my sig).