Computer won’t boot after installing a new hard drive
We had a visitor to our youtube channel send us a message that they installed a hard drive alongside the drive that is already in the machine and now it will not boot up. Instead it gives the error “BOOTMGR missing”.
This is a pretty common error and is relatively simple to fix but it can be pretty confusing the first time you see it. In your computer’s bios it keeps a boot device order. Most of you will know the boot order from needing to set it to boot from cd to use your diagnostic cd or load a new Operating System. However some computers also keep another order that is called “hard drive boot priority” and it decides which storage device boots first when you are booting from a hard drive.
If you hooked up a hard drive to “device 2″ on your motherboard when you first installed it and come along and plug in a drive to a higher port (0 or 1) the bios with automatically default to booting from the newly installed drive. Since this drive is meant for data storage and has no OS on it you get a BOOTMGR or boot manager missing error. Going into the bios and setting your hard drive priority to the correct drive should correct this issue. If you have multiple drives that are the same model (they will show up as the same thing) then just try them in a few different configurations until you find one that works.
Comments
I started laughing when i finished reading this post, as when I started my Glendora Computer Repair business, this exact thing happened to me, I had just built a computer and not knowing I had used sata port 2 and 3 connecting the OS drive in 3, I think I installed the OS a couple of times before realizing that I needed to change the settings in the BIOS. Great post for all the people that may run into this simple but easy fix. that can leave you over looking the fix and scratching your head.
Comment by Omar Acosta on September 5, 2011 at 3:33 am
Interestingly enough, I’ve never run into this. Good to know if it ever happens! Although, in 3 years of pc repair, I’ve only replaced a handful of hard drives. Maybe I’m jinxing it now!
Comment by Ryan Critchett on September 9, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Dont jinx yourself Ryan, it may happen to you. LOL
Comment by Glendora Computer Repair on September 30, 2011 at 10:17 pm
Let’s hope it doesn’t, Glendora!
Comment by Ryan - Lehigh Valley Computer Repair on October 11, 2011 at 10:54 am
Harddrive, take the 4GB hard drive out, and put the 250GB hard drive in.
Pingback by Your Questions About Xbox 360 4gb Upgrade | XBOX 360 & Stuff on October 18, 2011 at 5:49 am
Yeah after installation of new software sometimes computer may not boot. Various reason are there the software you are installing is not supporting to the configuration of that computer system or that software is a corrupt one. So you have to check for this all reason. Even without any problem sometimes your computer may not boot for that you have to again install that software…
Comment by EDI on December 8, 2011 at 8:58 am
Yeah computer may not work after installation of new software. Also some time after installation of a new software your computer will boot but work differently….So you may think about hardware problem but it is very difficult to make each solution of the any software. Nice to get many more thing from your site….
Comment by EDI VAN on December 16, 2011 at 2:57 am