2010 fails to restore Windows 7 MBR
A few weeks ago ater a completing a fresh win7 and application installation, I created a full image backup (sector by sector) using True Image Home 2010.
Today I went to restore the backup, including partitions and MBR, but when the computer tries to boot, the MBR is missing. Worse yet, when I try to fix it using Win7 install disc, it fails to fix the MBR. I tried the automatic repair as well as command prompt (fixmbr and bootsec) to no avail.
This is a vanilla installation, no linux/macOS partitions, no fancy boot managers. Just a single partition on a 64gig SSD (unless SSD is the problem).
I can install win7 fresh on the SSD and it works, so I know the drive is good.
IIRC, it says something like BOOTMGR IS MISSING PRESS CTR ALT DEL
Chris:
The message "BOOTMGR is missing" comes from an NTFS partition that was formatted by Vista or Windows 7. I'm not sure where the "Press CTRL ALT DEL" part of the message comes from.
If you're getting a "BOOTMGR is missing" error message then that rules out an MBR problem. If there was a problem with the MBR then the symptom would be a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the display.
The file BOOTMGR is normally in the Active partition on the disk. If you did an install to a blank SSD then the Windows installer should have created two partitions - a 100 MB System Reserved partition and the Windows partition. BOOTMGR would have been installed to the System Reserved partition. However, you said that you have only one partition. You would have gotten that type of installation if you first created a partition the size of your SSD and then installed to the existing partition. In a single-partition Win 7 installation the BOOTMGR file will be in the Windows partition, which the installer will make the active partition.
No matter which type of installation you had, if you made an image of the entire disk including all partitions and then restored the entire disk, things should have come out OK.
When you did the TI restore did the program only show a single partition? Did you restore this partition as active? If the program showed both a Windows partition and a System Reserved partition then the 100 MB System Reserved partition should have been restored as active. Any chance that you did have the System Reserved partition originally but left it out of the image?
When I go into TI, under the Restore Disk option, I am presented with Disk1 with 3 checkable options, the NTFS partition, the small NTFS (labeled system reserved, flagged as pri, active), and MBR and Track 0. I checked the Disk1 option, which then automatically checks all sub options.
I will try again and see how many partitions are created.
If that doesn't work I have some ideas:
1) install windows 7 so i get the boot partition back, then restore just the big ntfs partition image
2) install windows 7 and then restore all files/programs from the backup (not sure what windows will do with the registry and system files that are in use)
Chris:
Or, as an alternative, restore from your backup in this order, one partition at a time:
1. The small system reserved partition - as Primary, Active
2. The Windows partition - as Primary
3. MBR and Track 0
As a hunch, if the prior restore did restore both partitions and somehow made the Windows partition active instead of the System Reserved partition then you would experience the symptom that you described. So another alternative is to check which partition is active and to set the active flag correctly if it's incorrect now. You could use a partition manager (Easus, Acronis DD 11, etc) to do this or you could do it from a command prompt from a Windows 7 DVD using Diskpart. If this was what happened then I'm surprised that the Windows 7 automatic repair couldn't detect and fix it.
Finally restored!
I think you are right that something is up with the boot partition backup.
I found a secondary culprit. Not for the bootmgr mystery, but why windows could not repair the startup.
I had installed AHCI drivers and changed the bios, but that was after I had created the backup images. I believe that is why windows could not repair the startup problem (because AHCI startup drivers did not even exist at that time). That confounded me when I would restore the NTFS partition, leaving the working boot partition created by a fresh win7 setup. I would get a lovely blue screen so I thought surely my acronis backups were really fubar'd somehow.
Anyway, a good night's rest and going over our discussions (and some coffee) prompted me to flip back to IDE, and my backup finally booted. Then I redownloaded the AHCI patch, changed the bios again and now happily posting the results.
As an aside, for those interested in enabling AHCI AFTER a windows 7 install (because you can't setup AHCI windows7 without having the driver disks beforehand), the fix is MicrosoftFixit50470.
So my solution was:
1) setup vanilla win7 so I could get a bootable partition
2) acronis boot cd to restore just the NTFS partition
3) change bios (to IDE)
4) boot win7, install AHCI drivers
5) change bios (to AHCI)
Thanks, Mark!
Chris:
Seeing the BOOTMGR is missing error is confusing. I was under the impression that the AHCI drivers were not enabled until later in the boot process, so this is still a mystery. The only theory that I can come up with is that you may have restored the Windows C partition as Active, which would then cause the BOOTMGR is missing error when the PC then attempted to boot from the wrong partition.
Anyway, your explanation about AHCI drivers being missing from the image makes sense because that would definitely cause a blue screen error if you booted with the BIOS in AHCI mode and Windows did not have an AHCI driver installed. Glad that you have everything sorted and working.
Chris:
Seeing the BOOTMGR is missing error is confusing.
Agreed. I'm sure that the bootmgr is seen at the bios level, irrespective of the AHCI drivers. It may be some unforseen quirkiness with the drive being an SSD (its a kingston 64gb ssdnow v+ series). I may just test the theory on a mechanical sata drive. If that fires right up, then we may be onto something.
or it could just have been operator error from the start... lol
Chris:
Seeing the BOOTMGR is missing error is confusing.
Agreed. I'm sure that the bootmgr is seen at the bios level, irrespective of the AHCI drivers. It may be some unforseen quirkiness with the drive being an SSD (its a kingston 64gb ssdnow v+ series). I may just test the theory on a mechanical sata drive. If that fires right up, then we may be onto something.
or it could just have been operator error from the start... lol
I have the same problems with windows 7 MBR. Here you can find how to fix windows 7 MBR problems!