Using DBAN Boot and Nuke () I wiped the drive completely (took 10 hours or so).

This is when I realized that it must be connected to the bad install and that before tossing this PC out of the window of a moving car, I should wipe the drive completely and start over, as something on the drive must be corrupted, despite the reformat and health of the drive. 'Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart' I replaced the ram with ram I know has no errors and booted up. Used a piece of software meant to fix bootmgr issues () - no luck.įrustrated at this point, I went ahead and performed memtest86+ 4.21 and detected tens of thousands of errors in the ram. Went into BIOS and made sure boot order was correct - it was. I put it back into the new rig, checked cables, replaced sata cords, powered on and 'Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart' The drive was reformatted successfully and the long test revealed no issues, the drive was healthy. I removed the hard drive and put it into a working PC and it was detected reformatted the drive, scanned it using Western Digital's (it's a WD Caviar Blue 500gb) software to check for drive health as I assumed the drive was bad. My problem of course was that the OS was not successfully installed, therefore I had no way to access the repair options.

There are many walkthroughs on the internet detailing how to remedy this problem BUT all of them are assuming Windows has been successfully installed and that you can repair it using the install disc and clicking 'repair' when putting it into the disc drive and loading it before booting. I continually recieved the error 'Bootmgr is missing press ctrl+alt+delete+ to restart' This experience needs to be shared in case someone else goes through this and like me, NONE of the suggested fixes work.Īfter a failed windows 7 install using an upgrade disc (clean install, no previous OS - this is possible with the right sequence of installation, google it).

I just wanted to document my ordeal here for two reasons: 1.) in order to share my experience and 2.) beacause after 36+ hours of attempting to find a solution to my problem I could NOT find one and did a few things myself to remedy and fix the situation.

Repair bootmgr windows 7