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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
Hi all
Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil |
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#2
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
TheScullster wrote:
Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil I'm not familiar with these "force" commands... If Linux can detect a valid file system, it's going to put an entry in /etc/fstab so it can be mounted. It will only mount, if you click in a file manager, on the disk icon. Linux will check the partition type in the MBR, but it is also going to do at least a basic check that the metadata is correct for the file system. If the metadata is bad, the mount step will fail (presumably read-only, so Linux won't attempt to overwrite anything). If you successfully mount the partition, and you decide to drag and drop files, *then* you are taking a chance. Because now you're modifying the file system. But if all you're doing is looking, far less damage should result. Linux lacks any form of CHKDSK, so it can't repair damage as such. One utility has the ability to set the "dirty" bit, so the next time Windows is running, Windows can use CHKDSK to repair the file system. But that isn't the same thing as Linux doing the repairs itself. There is one commercial Linux utility ($99+) that claims to know how to repair NTFS. Linux developers know enough to be able to write such a repair utility, but it hasn't happened yet. "BOOTMGR is missing" by itself, doesn't portend a total collapse. It could be triggered by just one missing thing. By the way, that error implies someone has installed or attempted to install, Windows 7 or Vista. You may be seeing a WinXP logo on the computer case, but that doesn't imply there has not been some creative updating by the owner. Maybe they tried to install the beta of Windows 7 or something. The word "BOOTMGR" didn't get there on its own. (If you saw NTLDR, then it might be Win2K or WinXP.) http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/ As a repair person, this is a laundry list you can use. Sure, people work with less, but this is intended to take the maximum care, so you can look the computer owner in the face, and say you did your very best. 1) Determine the size of the hard drive in the computer. 2) Have on hand, at least two empty disks the same size or larger than the drive you're working on. One disk will hold an "image" sector by sector, of the sick disk drive. The other spare disk, is for saving scavenged files, if it comes to that. (If you cannot repair, you scavenge files from the sick disk, to the second spare disk.) 3) Make a backup of the sick disk to the first spare. This is an example of a basic Linux command using disk dump. dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb Obviously, there is more to learn than that, about using "disk dump", but that is an example of making a sector by sector copy. If you later break /dev/hda somehow, you can copy hdb back to hda at some point in the future. Typical performance of that (non-optimal) example is 13MB/sec. In my example, I'm assuming hdb is the same size or bigger than hda. In Linux, you need root to make the copy, so if you were using a Ubuntu disk, you might do it as sudo dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb To give another example, this is how I back up my WinXP partition, before doing crazy experiments. This uses a Windows version of dd and Windows syntax. Using block size and count parameters, speeds up the transfer by a factor of three. Note that "bs" is a multiple of 512 bytes. bs*count = raw_size_of_partition. You need to get the raw size info, then factor the number, to come up with "good" values for bs and count. I try to keep bs below 512KB in size. Another nice aspect about using bs and count, is it transfers a precise amount of info, unlike the other command which just stops when you hit the end of one of the two disks. You can see, this requires a bit more work. dd if=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2 of=winxp.dd bs=129024 count=604031 If I had to back up my whole 250GB disk, it looks like this. This is Linux. 193536*1292056 = 250GB approx. The Linux "factor" command can help you factor the reported full size of the disk. sudo dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=193536 count=1292056 4) You also have the option, of slaving the disk to another Windows PC and working on it. That is handy, if you need CHKDSK, for example. But I would make my disk to disk copy first, before any CHKDSK runs. *Any* utility that makes "in-place" changes (changing forever, the one copy you've got), runs the risk of making things worse. So before doing anything to the sick disk, you make a copy first. CHKDSK has been known to ruin a disk. That would typically happen if the disk was corrupted by a half connected disk cable, and the disk was chock full of errors. CHKDSK would fix non-existent things, and have a merry old time for itself. That is known as "error multiplication", just ruining the disk forever. And this is why you make a backup, before doing CHKDSK. If you're careful with their data, you can do as much experimenting as is necessary to fix it. As long as you have a properly made backup, there is nothing to worry about. The spare disks you use, should be known good. If the spare disks show bad SMART data, as shown by HDTune or a similar utility, then find better disk(s) before starting your work. You can keep your backup, after the computer is returned to the owner. If, after a week, there are no more phone calls, you can delete it or use Secure Erase or whatever you want. The erasure should be known to cover all the sectors you used for your backup. If the computer is damaged in the process of shipping it back to the owner, it pays to have the backup just in case. If the owner, with a straight face, can tell you that a backup already exists, then you can erase the damn thing as soon as you're done. But if the owner is a careless person, you'll need to hold onto the backup for a few days. ******* Now that you've safely made a backup, we can look at some other options. If your Linux work shows some fully functional partitions, and you can traverse the file system and see all the usual files in there, you can consider using a repair disc. Normally, a responsible owner, would burn the repair disc provided my Microsoft. When I got my Win 7 laptop, the laptop prompts you to burn a repair disc. This is not an installer DVD, it is a boot CD, about 200MB or so perhaps. That disc is sufficient to get access to an MSDOS command prompt, so you can issue commands. There are also automated repair options. The automated repair options work, if when booting the disc, the disc detects a valid partition. If I boot the Windows 7 repair CD on my WinXP machine, the WinXP partition won't appear in the menu of things to repair. Yet, if I want, I can instead use the command prompt in there, and use programs like "bootsect" to put back a WinXP MBR. Now, your suspicion is, the owner installed Windows 7 or Vista. That means, they have the original DVD. That DVD can also be used as a repair disc. You used to be able to download the 200MB repair disc from here, but both the Windows 7 and Vista versions have been removed. That means, you're going to have to hit up the owner for some disc. Either the installer DVD, or a repair CD, could be used to fix the BOOTMGR is missing. http://neosmart.net/blog/2009/window...-repair-discs/ ******* This is an example of a repair. If you've made your copy of the disk drive, you can give this a shot. Half an hour to back up the hard drive, and ten minutes fiddling with this. http://www.techsupportalert.com/cont...-windows-7.htm 1) Boot from Windows 7 DVD. 2) First screen chooses language/keyboard etc. 3) “Repair your computer" is the next thing to select. 4) Menu pops up with a list of valid partitions to repair. Select the correct one. 5) Next is "Recovery Options" "Startup Repair" http://0.tqn.com/d/pcsupport/1/0/i/4...p-repair-7.jpg Notice there is a command prompt option there, if all else fails. Then you're in a MSDOS like environment. 6) An automated sequence will try to repair it. Obviously, if something key has been removed (like say the 100MB boot partition that is sometimes used), it's going to fail and tell you so. Installs come two ways. They can consist of boot_partition + main_partition or can have just the main_partition. My laptop has the former option. There is some way to force an install to not use the 100MB boot partition method, so having it all in C: is also an option you can run into. HTH, Paul |
#3
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
In . uk,
TheScullster typed: Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil Since there hasn't been a direct response to the question of a live 'nix CD, YES, you should be able to access the data on the hard drive. I don't know what "force" commands refers to; that's a new one to me. Can you boot to Safe Mode? If so, then you can run Start; Programs; Accessories; System Tools; System Information and that will tell you what the OS is and its SP status too and much more. Another tool called SIW (Google for it) is a super-System Information program with a lot more data about the machine in its output. Paul has given you an excellent treatise IMO on the overall system and it's pretty thorough from the aspect of how to prevent damaging the disk, backing it up first before any work is done to recover anything, and so forth. By backing it up, you can at least always go back to the original problem and start over again if you have to. I'd recommend backing up to DVDs or better yet another HD (external type) just so nothing can accidentally happen to the original data, which can then be considered a control point. Assuming there are multiple hard drives, it might be easiest to just pop in a bootable hard drive with any windows OS on it and set to Master if it's an IDE system, and set the other HD as a slave if it's an IDE system. SATA drives are easier; see the docs to see which cable is for the boot disk or simply trace it down visually. Then boot from the replaced bootable HD and use that to look at the other drives, logical or physical, to see if you can get hold of the photos you need. Unless you have a hardware problem, this should work. If no joy, then read Paul's information carefully and give it a go. The most important thing is to create the backup immediately and never allow that backup to be changed in any way. I usually put them to DVDs just so they cannot be compromised by mistake. Let us know how it comes out in the end, OK? Twayne` |
#4
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
"Paul" wrote Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil I'm not familiar with these "force" commands........snip.... Thanks Paul Very comprehensive procedure! The force command mentioned (more like switch in dos parlance perhaps) was necessary to access the drives on my daughter's Sony laptop (Vista). The link below shows where these are necessary http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...dows-computer/ The line is: mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/disk -o force Phil |
#5
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
"Twayne" typed:
Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil Since there hasn't been a direct response to the question of a live 'nix CD, YES, you should be able to access the data on the hard drive. I don't know what "force" commands refers to; that's a new one to me. Can you boot to Safe Mode? If so, then you can run Start; Programs; Accessories; System Tools; System Information and that will tell you what the OS is and its SP status too and much more. Another tool called SIW (Google for it) is a super-System Information program with a lot more data about the machine in its output. Paul has given you an excellent treatise IMO on the overall system and it's pretty thorough from the aspect of how to prevent damaging the disk, backing it up first before any work is done to recover anything, and so forth. By backing it up, you can at least always go back to the original problem and start over again if you have to. I'd recommend backing up to DVDs or better yet another HD (external type) just so nothing can accidentally happen to the original data, which can then be considered a control point. Assuming there are multiple hard drives, it might be easiest to just pop in a bootable hard drive with any windows OS on it and set to Master if it's an IDE system, and set the other HD as a slave if it's an IDE system. SATA drives are easier; see the docs to see which cable is for the boot disk or simply trace it down visually. Then boot from the replaced bootable HD and use that to look at the other drives, logical or physical, to see if you can get hold of the photos you need. Unless you have a hardware problem, this should work. If no joy, then read Paul's information carefully and give it a go. The most important thing is to create the backup immediately and never allow that backup to be changed in any way. I usually put them to DVDs just so they cannot be compromised by mistake. Let us know how it comes out in the end, OK? Twayne` Thanks Twayne I have a 500Gb Hitachi USB drive available. Will this connect OK to the Ubuntu session and allow copying of files off the HD? I have successfully copied to a 2Gb flash drive, but some of the video files are large and there's lots of them. ISTR some of these external USB drives need to install software to make their entire capacity writable. I just attached the drive to my Windoze PC and it seemed to be "found" without any special measures/installation. Thanks Phil |
#6
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
TheScullster wrote:
"Twayne" typed: Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil Since there hasn't been a direct response to the question of a live 'nix CD, YES, you should be able to access the data on the hard drive. I don't know what "force" commands refers to; that's a new one to me. Can you boot to Safe Mode? If so, then you can run Start; Programs; Accessories; System Tools; System Information and that will tell you what the OS is and its SP status too and much more. Another tool called SIW (Google for it) is a super-System Information program with a lot more data about the machine in its output. Paul has given you an excellent treatise IMO on the overall system and it's pretty thorough from the aspect of how to prevent damaging the disk, backing it up first before any work is done to recover anything, and so forth. By backing it up, you can at least always go back to the original problem and start over again if you have to. I'd recommend backing up to DVDs or better yet another HD (external type) just so nothing can accidentally happen to the original data, which can then be considered a control point. Assuming there are multiple hard drives, it might be easiest to just pop in a bootable hard drive with any windows OS on it and set to Master if it's an IDE system, and set the other HD as a slave if it's an IDE system. SATA drives are easier; see the docs to see which cable is for the boot disk or simply trace it down visually. Then boot from the replaced bootable HD and use that to look at the other drives, logical or physical, to see if you can get hold of the photos you need. Unless you have a hardware problem, this should work. If no joy, then read Paul's information carefully and give it a go. The most important thing is to create the backup immediately and never allow that backup to be changed in any way. I usually put them to DVDs just so they cannot be compromised by mistake. Let us know how it comes out in the end, OK? Twayne` Thanks Twayne I have a 500Gb Hitachi USB drive available. Will this connect OK to the Ubuntu session and allow copying of files off the HD? I have successfully copied to a 2Gb flash drive, but some of the video files are large and there's lots of them. ISTR some of these external USB drives need to install software to make their entire capacity writable. I just attached the drive to my Windoze PC and it seemed to be "found" without any special measures/installation. Thanks Phil The USB drive should be very convenient, and not be a problem to get working. If you're going to have problems, it would be with the usage of a large disk, with a USB adapter chip that can't handle it. But if you bought a pre-assembled USB drive, they've taken care of compatibility for you. If you went back to Windows 98, you might need to add some third party software. But later OSes, should use the built-in USB Mass Storage protocol stack, to automatically make it available. If the 500GB was much larger than the "sick" drive, you may have enough room to store several aspects of your recovered or backed up data. You can store an "image" of the sick disk, like this - dd if=/dev/hda of=/somedisk/wholedisk.dd The output file in that case, is being stored as a large file in the /somedisk file system. When I do stuff like that, I might use an NTFS partition (which handles large files), or an EXT2 that is set up for large files. (If you put your mind to it, and use ancient tools for making EXT2, you can actually make one that refuses to store large files.) In any case, as long as your file system can hold gigabyte sized files properly, you can back up the whole disk as a single file. Having done so, you can also store other files right next to it, if you want. So your 500GB disk could become a large "garbage dump" by the time you're done. The other method I was mentioning, was just doing raw disk to raw disk transfer. But you can also transfer raw disk to a single file, and it is much the same. Paul |
#7
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
In . uk,
TheScullster wrote: Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart BOOTMGR is for Vista and Windows 7. So it sounds like one of them was or still is installed somewhere. You can use BOOTMGR for just XP if you wanted too, but it isn't really necessary. And it sounds like it is broken anyway. Windows XP Recover Console can fix this with a FIXMBR and FIXBOOT commands. There are other third party tools that probably can do the same. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#8
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
In ,
Paul wrote: [...] If you successfully mount the partition, and you decide to drag and drop files, *then* you are taking a chance. Because now you're modifying the file system. But if all you're doing is looking, far less damage should result. There is a dirty little secret about the Ubuntu Live CD. And that is it will make your Windows XP system lockup at the desktop if XP is using no swapfile. Apparently Ubuntu uses the swapfile for its own purposes. And one doesn't exist, it does something really bad. Linux lacks any form of CHKDSK, so it can't repair damage as such. One utility has the ability to set the "dirty" bit, so the next time Windows is running, Windows can use CHKDSK to repair the file system. But that isn't the same thing as Linux doing the repairs itself. There is one commercial Linux utility ($99+) that claims to know how to repair NTFS. Linux developers know enough to be able to write such a repair utility, but it hasn't happened yet. That is one I am puzzled why anybody ever bothers with a Linux CD? As BartPE or WinPE works so much better and you have the repair tools as well. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#9
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
In ,
TheScullster typed: "Twayne" typed: Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil Since there hasn't been a direct response to the question of a live 'nix CD, YES, you should be able to access the data on the hard drive. I don't know what "force" commands refers to; that's a new one to me. Can you boot to Safe Mode? If so, then you can run Start; Programs; Accessories; System Tools; System Information and that will tell you what the OS is and its SP status too and much more. Another tool called SIW (Google for it) is a super-System Information program with a lot more data about the machine in its output. Paul has given you an excellent treatise IMO on the overall system and it's pretty thorough from the aspect of how to prevent damaging the disk, backing it up first before any work is done to recover anything, and so forth. By backing it up, you can at least always go back to the original problem and start over again if you have to. I'd recommend backing up to DVDs or better yet another HD (external type) just so nothing can accidentally happen to the original data, which can then be considered a control point. Assuming there are multiple hard drives, it might be easiest to just pop in a bootable hard drive with any windows OS on it and set to Master if it's an IDE system, and set the other HD as a slave if it's an IDE system. SATA drives are easier; see the docs to see which cable is for the boot disk or simply trace it down visually. Then boot from the replaced bootable HD and use that to look at the other drives, logical or physical, to see if you can get hold of the photos you need. Unless you have a hardware problem, this should work. If no joy, then read Paul's information carefully and give it a go. The most important thing is to create the backup immediately and never allow that backup to be changed in any way. I usually put them to DVDs just so they cannot be compromised by mistake. Let us know how it comes out in the end, OK? Twayne` Thanks Twayne I have a 500Gb Hitachi USB drive available. Will this connect OK to the Ubuntu session and allow copying of files off the HD? I have successfully copied to a 2Gb flash drive, but some of the video files are large and there's lots of them. ISTR some of these external USB drives need to install software to make their entire capacity writable. I just attached the drive to my Windoze PC and it seemed to be "found" without any special measures/installation. Thanks Phil That's the normal procedure for windows; just plug the drive in and it's recognized and you're in business, especally if it's a preformatted drive as many are these days. If you don't get the full capacity of around 460 Gig for a 500 Gig drive, that would be a need to update/flash the BIOS or simply turn on the LBA mode if it exists n the BIOS settings. But even if you did have to format it (because say it's formatted FAT instead of NTFS), that's easy to do. Sounds to me like you're all set. HTH, Twayne` |
#10
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BOOTMGR is Missing - Linux Boot Possible
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:41:40 +0100, "TheScullster" wrote:
Hi all Sorry guys I was given some duff info yesterday! I now have the PC (Packard Bell) available and on start up the actual error messages a Verifying DMI Pool Data ................ BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart Has a Win XP logo on front. So the question is pretty much the same: Should I be able to access the data from Ubuntu CD boot? Also, I have used the terminal "force" commands to gain access to a laptop drive previously. But I know very little about Linux software and possible corruption of data. Can using these force commands to enable disk access actually cause data corruption? The PC I'm looking at has valuable family pics on apparently and I certainly don't want to risk rendering the disk unrecoverable. Thanks Phil BOOTMGR is for Windows Vista ot Windows 7, not Windows XP. If you want to just access the data, Get Hiren's BootCD: http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ Burn it to a CD, Boot to it, and select "Mini Windows" If you want to repair the error: http://www.techsupportalert.com/cont...-windows-7.htm You could also select the DOS Prompt and type: bootrec /fixboot then type: bootrec /fixmbr Unc |
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