Vista - Bootmgr is compressed

I accidentally compressed my hard drive to save space and now my laptop will not boot up. Also I cannot repair with Vista DVD because my cd drive is broken. What should I do?

Hi kartor and welcome to Vista Forums

What is the make and model number of your laptop?
Most, if not all, laptops have a hidden partition which can be used to restore the system to factory condition. This is invoked by pressing the appropriate key during boot up - typically, this will be either F11 or F12, but check your manual for specific details and instructions. Hopefully, if this partition hasn't become corrupt due to you compressing the drive, this should restore your system to its original condition and might also get your optical drive working.
If your optical drive still doesn't work, or you can't follow this advice because there is no recovery partition or it has become corrupt, then you will need to replace your optical drive. These can be obtained, but are not as readily available as conventional units. However, follow the instructions in the manual and remove and replace the drive. The problem may be caused by a poor electrical connection, and the act of removing and replacing the drive is often enough to clean the connectors, thus ensuring a good connection once again.

It's a Compaq Presario F730US. I'm pretty sure that the CD/DVD drive will never work again because the little lens broke off (it was a TSST Corp TS-L632M, piece of crap). I don't know if system restore will work because when it would always say on the bottom right corner of the screen something like "last backup restore failed click here to fix" or whatever I never even tried to fix it. Oops. So what can I do? Do I have to buy another cd drive? If so, how would I install it without booting up the computer first?

Hi Kartor,

Here is a link to the main support page for your laptop: Compaq Presario F730US Notebook PC*

This link is to the spare parts page for the F700 series: HP PartSurfer

As you can see, there are 2 versions of your model. Here are the direct links for those (be sure to select the correct one):
G967UAR HP PartSurfer
G967UA HP PartSurfer

If you scroll down the list, you will come to the category Drive [Drives] and the optical drive is the 2nd listed, part number 453048-001. Please note that I haven't had any cause to order anything directly from them, so you will have to check for more information on ordering by clicking the link Buy Parts and following the instructions.

Hope this helps.

Hello Kartor.... you can always create a bootable USB stick from your Windows Vista installation DVD (you'll need another computer for that, but even an internet cafe would do)

Here's a guide on how to make a Vista bootable installation USB stick:

HOWTO: Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive - Windows Live

I have this USB flash drive

SanDisk | Products | USB Flash Drives | New Cruzer Micro

I loaded the Vista DVD onto it, tried to boot from my laptop and the screen was just blank with that flashing underscore. Do you think this was the wrong flash drive to load it onto? It's 8 gigs so I know there's enough space...

did you follow the USB instructions correctly?

particularly the part where you enter DISKPART and you set PARTITION to ACTIVE....

I think you haven't made your USB partition bootable.

You're right...I'm using a pc with win2000 and I brought up command prompt and typed in listdisk but said it was not recognized. Would it be better to do it on a computer with xp instead? I think so...

my bad...the diskpart command will work on Vista only.

if you don't have a Vista PC , you can boot any PC with the VISTA installation DVD, (dont' worry this wont' install vista on their disk) and at the first screen select your language etc, press next, then go to repair your pc.
There, it will search for windows installations and won't find any. (IF IT ASKS YOU TO REPAIR AND RESTART SELECT NO!!!) Press next and you will get a screen with several options, one of them is command prompt.
Do the stuff needed there to prepare your USB, then copy the Vista DVD on it. (IN THE WAY DESCRIBED on the link I provided above)

Buy a USB DVD drive or replace your internal one. Once you compress a boot partition, you usually can't reverse it. You need to get a working DVD. You might be able to uncompress it from an administrative mode.