# Solved: Bootmgr missing



## bigt95 (May 30, 2011)

I created a flash to boot to linux, but when I try to boot I get the "Bootmgr missing" is there anything that can be done to fix this?

Please comment!

Tony


----------



## ivelnal (Jun 3, 2011)

can you show us the content or snapshot of the usb?

possible that the bootmgr is not created properly


----------



## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

bootmgr is the boot manager of Win7 or Vista.

The OP seems to have overwritten the Linux boot loader on top of the Win7/Vista bootmgr when messing around with the flash drive. It will be a typical mistake of putting Grub at the MBR of the internal hard disk instead of the flash drive.

The cure is to restore bootmgr using Win7/Vista installation DVD.

In reality bootmgr is not missing but available in the C:\ drive but the damaged Win7 boot loader cannot find it.


----------



## bigt95 (May 30, 2011)

Thank you for your response!

I guess the part that confuses me, is that about month ago I was able to create a bootable flash with no problems.

I'm using the same:
iso image "bpuntu1010 ", 
same burner "unetbootin-windows-502",
same type of flash drive "sandisk 8g",
same laptop"gateway mt6728/win7"

Below is a directory listing of the flash drive:


```
Directory of G:\
06/03/2011  06:14 PM    <DIR>          .disk
06/03/2011  06:21 PM    <DIR>          casper
06/03/2011  07:05 PM                 0 dir.txt
06/03/2011  06:21 PM    <DIR>          isolinux
10/25/2010  11:40 PM               792 md5sum.txt
06/03/2011  06:21 PM            54,836 menu.c32
06/03/2011  06:21 PM    <DIR>          preseed
10/25/2010  11:10 PM               198 README.diskdefines
06/03/2011  06:21 PM             1,404 syslinux.cfg
06/03/2011  06:21 PM               441 ubnfilel.txt
10/25/2010  11:11 PM        16,427,144 ubninit
10/25/2010  11:11 PM         4,289,616 ubnkern
06/03/2011  06:14 PM                34 ubnpathl.txt
10/25/2010  11:39 PM                 0 ubuntu
              10 File(s)     20,774,465 bytes
               4 Dir(s)   1,688,854,528 bytes free
```
any comment would be greatly appreciated!


----------



## bigt95 (May 30, 2011)

Is there a high level tutorial that will put in prespective the relationship between win mbr and grub?

If the flash is used to boot to linux (so i can use linux utilitys) why then is the mbr an issue?


----------



## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

Your post #4, with a subdirectory /isolinux, would indicates your Ubuntu is being booted as a Live CD using isolinux as the boot loader. Grub is not used. When a Linux is booted as a Live CD it is not installed permanently and not specific to one computer but can work on any computer.

All boot loaders work the same with two parts. Part 1 is for filling the first sector of 512 bytes in the hard disk (or flash drive) called the MBR and the second part in the partition the operating system residing. The two parts are hard coded so that when the first part is loaded it can find the second part by the address of the hard disk, say at which cylinder, head and sector, A good description of Grub's two parts, called stage1 and stage2, can be found in the Grub1 manual in GNU/Grub web page. 

You should have put the boot loader of Linux in the flash drive's MBR and instruct the Bios to boot the flash drive as the first booting device. In this case your Win7 MBR of the internal hard disk is untouched and will boot normally if the flash drive is absent.


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Try BootIce to write the MBR and PBR of your choosing to the device.


----------

