OK so I get this BOOTMGR missing message at startup and with some Googling I found it to be a common issue. So I tried the solution suggested by a ton of differnt sites - startup with the Vista DVD and choose the Repair option. The problem is that at the next step, Windows Vista doesn't show up as an OS in the System Recovery Options window! It's just blank so obviously when I pick "Startup Repair" nothing happens. It also says "If you don't see your OS, click on Load Drivers to load drivers for your hard drive." But if I do this I have no idea where to look and what to look for! Any pointers on where I should go next would be much appreciated.

Sorry, but it doesn't work. I get a response in the command window that both commands were successfully executed, but after that it's the same thing - I still get the Bootmgr missing, press ctl+alt+del message, and when I start with the dvd it still can't locate my OS in the System Recovery Options window

How many partitions do you have? Your Vista partition might not be set to active...just a thought.

In this case:

Boot again with the Vista cd and go into the command prompt.There, type:

diskpart <enter>

diskpart> List disk

You will get something like:

Code:

 
Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
--------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
Disk 0    Online          250 GB      0 B

diskpart> select disk 0 (or your disk number)


diskpart> list partition

If you have more than 1 partitions, you will get something like :

Code:

 
Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
-------------  ----------------  -------  -------
Partition 1    Primary            100 GB   0 MB
Partition 2    Primary            150 GB   100 GB

diskpart> select partition 1

"Partition 1 is now the selected partition."

diskpart> active

diskpart> exit

REBOOT.


Repeat with the other partition if it doesn't work.Might help.

Are you running RAID 0? Does your hard drive show up on POST?

That doesn't worlk either. I DO have two partitions, from what I recall C: was the main stuff and D: was something for recovery that HP had put in when they shipped the machine to me. When I list the partitions in the command window they show up - a 228Gig one and a smaller 22Gig one. The smaller one seems to have been selected but Vista doesn't show up when I try to Repair. When I select the larger one Vista doesn't show up either, but this time something called HP Recover Manager shows up in the OS column in the window! That appears weird since I would have expected Vista to be in the larger partition and the Recovery thingie to be in the smaller one. Either way, I can't get things to work from slecting either partition.

I'm just foxed - it seems like the Hard Drive is OK since it can obviously find both and list their contents when I browse through after loading. But I can't seem to get the Vista OS to show up where it appears that it should be defalult so that I can fix it. I'm not sure what I can do short of reinstalling from scratch and losing everything I have on the machine right now - unless I can figure out some way to get the Recovery thingie to work and at least put me back to the factory condition.

Thanks anyway...

Since it's an HP machine, you must have a "press F11 for recovery" at boot time...if not, check your bios to enable this feauture. Had a similar case yesterday with a client, eventually I made a clean install cause he had tampered with the recovery partition...

I do - except that nothing happens when I press F11! It just goes on trying to boot. I'm not sure if it needs to be enabled separately when it is already an option (at the bottom of the window) and whether I need to set the partition containing the Recovery as "active" or something else...

What changed on your computer? What did you install?