BootMgr Missing - when I try bootrec /fixboot and /rebuildbcd......it says "Element not found"

Maybe this might help...I moved the sata cable to another port,.. that fixed the problem for me. Or...

I booted it up getting the error "Bootmgr missing press ctrl alt delete". I went into recovery again and it found my windows 7 installation and it fixed all of the errors, and it started up fine.
 
So the steps I took to fix it was:
1: Boot into gparted
2: Right click on partition with windows
3: Flag as boot
4: Run windows recovery to fix any other errors (using startup repair, and sometimes when it scans for OS's it repairs automatically)

No, I saw these online as well. I need  someone with technical expertise that knows how to walk through fixing this... I already know how to search Google and read.

I come to this forum for expertise after I have done that already....

This web info helped me. Do you have any additional information to work with? I am willing to help.

No, I don't,,,,, that's why I am on the "Experts Exchange"..... looking for an Expert,...... right?! I need someone with technical knowledge and experience to walk me through fixing this.... not someone searching through Google.... I appreciate your willingness to want to help, but I don't need good intentions.... I can get that from my wife, and she barley understands how to get the cap off the gas tank...... let alone how a Boot record works, gets corrupted, and gets repaired....

I need an "Expert"..... hence the name of the site....

Why is it telling me "Element not found" and what is the resolution to fix that, or reinstall without losing my installation/customization.... I know there is a way to do this - I had this same issue years ago and printed out the solution, but it was a long time ago and I can't find the paperwork...

If you reinstall Windows 7 it won't erase everything it will keep your settings/customization as long as you see the "upgrade existing install" screen--it should prompt you for which install you want to upgrade--if it does not then the problem is severe. Do you have an OEM Win7 DVD or a retail version? Are you asking to resolve this issue or to do another Win7 Install to another drive and then copy over your customized settings.

Whichever resolves this.....  I can't boot into my computer.... When I boot from the Win7 disk and go to the command prompt it shows my "c:"  drive as "F:".... And I see all my files /folders including the Windows folder.....  Ran chkdsk /f /r and everything came back basically fine....

bootrec / fixboot and /rebuildbcd come back with message "Element not found"


Through install disk, was ale to do a restore of prior windows Restore File.... still getting missing bootmgr....

Need to rebuild my  boot directory.....  something is missing there

When you ran the bootrec/bcdedit you found online, did they find a reference to an installed windows os?
Bootrec /scanos
Bcdedit /set local <your language>

Do you know which drive/volume has the os?

The only thing we know for sure is that your system does not boot. All we can do is suggest different known options to fix bootloader/manager you may have to install the bootloader/manager on each MBR of a drive with a primary partition or if you have GPT based partitions other items come into play.

I fixed it... I unplugged all the drive except the boot drive where my windows installation was located. Because the Boot driver was not the first sata port, it was the 4th... it was showing up in the cmd window as F:, and that confused the dos based boot rebuild programs... once I had only that drive, and it was listed as the C: drive in the cmd window, then the Start-up Repair function in the Win 7 disk was able to repair the boot directory.... it was trying to fix the wrong drive when multiple drives were hooked up to the machine.

I have now switched the sata canbles around to make it Drive00 in the bios so it will be the C: drive in a cmd session.... booted right up once the Start-up Repair could "see" the drive and make corrections to it.... of course, it's 12 hours of guessing and pecking, and 5 minutes of actual repair work once you know what to do....

Should this repair interface be brought out of the horse-carraige and buggy-whip era.... of course..... will MS do it on their own... no....!!!! 12 wasted hours because the programs are so poorly designed.... If only MS has a couple of bucks they could spend to make this more intelligent and user friendly...

Thank G-d for Android and Apple tearing down the MS monoploy that cared more about enslavement than enlightenment and product excellence.... In the famous words of ROnald Reagan..... Mr. Gorborchov, ...Tear Down This Wall...!!!!  Like all monopolies, the MS one is bad for the public.... .

Thanks to everyone that tried to help...

I've requested that this question be closed as follows:

Accepted answer: 0 points for scarnson's comment #a38395529

for the following reason:

Other suggestions did not resolve the issue.

This was the solution.... did not see this posting until someone else had me do this... but this led to the resolution, per my comments....

It is possible to fix the boot in The configuration you had provided the first drive has active and primary partition.
The other part is you have to get /scanos locate installed os.
The effect would be disk1 has the MBR/boot that referenced /disk4 which upon boot actually assert that it is c: and the rest of the partitions will be accordingly arranged.
If you note multiboot systems with different version of windos always have the partition that booted will be c:

Yes - that's a good point... I kept setting Disk 4 (F") to active, because that is the "C:" drive within the windows environment and that's where my Windows folder is located... your solution would have worked to get the machine to boot, but I am happier the way it worked out, in that my windows hard drive is now the boot drive, and in the process, I had to re-arrange my sata cables so that this drive is all Drive 00 in the ordering of the drives within my bios... makes it easier if something happens to remember which on needs to be first, and then the cmd based respair tool on the Win disk will also see it first... this seems to happen every few years...