I finally pulled the trigger on a new PC when a good deal popped up on eBay. Respectable seller had put together $870 worth of parts for a customer that pulled out at the last minute, so he wanted to cut his losses and I got it for $600.

It arrived today, but upon booting I got a "Bootmgr not found - press Ctrl+alt+delete to restart" error message. Restarting results in the same error and I am unable to access BIOS for some reason. Troubleshooting online indicated that the hard drive might be faulty, which seems probable because it had come loose from it's clipping and probably got bounced around during shipping.

After removing the hard drive and booting without one, everything seemed to be working normally. My question is whether or not this is definitely an issue with the hard drive. Is there any way that it could be something caused by the boot order (haven't had a chance to check yet) or faulty wiring? Just want to know before I go out and purchase another hard drive.

It looks to me like just the boot order is wrong, though I cannot help you accesing the BIOS if the usual key does not work.

First try to change the boot order. If that doesn't work proceed:

Are you able to try to hook that drive to an other PC to see if it still works? I assume there's no Windows installed on it yet? In that case I would just install Windows over it if it still works. I would try a SMART test on the drive first to see if it's not damaged.

On the other side, just get a SSD for the OS and a cheap 1TB HDD for storage to be sure it won't die on you (you never know). Especially because storage isn't that expensive nowadays.

bootmgr not found suggests there is an operating system but it needs fixing.
Is it 7 or 8 ?
Load up a win disk for the relevent OS and run repair.
If you don't have one you can download a legit iso here.
http://www.w7forums.com/thread ... so-image-downloads.12325/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u ... s/downloads/hh442898.aspx

These aren't pirate copies so you'll need the key which should be on your PC if you need to reinstall the OS.

Bios, try resetting the PC, either on the board or pull the power cable, remove the CMOS battery and press and hold the power button several times, leave it 15 min, replace the battery, plug in the power cable then try to find the bios on startup.

I had this when I reformatted my PC and tried to reinstall Windows 7. The boot order was correct and I did check everything should've been correct, but it could've been just a problem in the installation files.

I ran around that problem and ended up installing XP for a brief moment and then booting Windows 7's installation. I don't know how, but that seemed to fix the problem, and I haven't had that ever since.

OK first off, did you buy it with an OS installed? If not that is your cause and you need an install disk, problem solved.

If it should have had an OS installed then you have to check a few things.

The very first thing to do is check that the BIOS is seeing your connected HDD correctly, if it shows in the boot order then that's enough and you can move on, if it doesn't show in the boot order then check the cables, if they are fine then you may indeed have a dead HDD.

A new PC running windows 7 or 8 and installed from fresh media can install on the HDD in 3 different ways:

Native SATA
IDE compatability

In the bios you can change which way the HDD connects IDE compatability should be avoided as it doesn't let you use all the new and fancy commands that SATA has but is still the default on some motherboards due to the fact that it will work with more drives and configurations than the others. So you need to find out which it is and possibly change it to the others to see if it then finds your installed OS.

The final way is EHCI mode, which is the newest and biggest pain in the ass. Your motherboard needs to be set to EHCI mode if it was installed as EHCI and not set if it wasn't (obviously) so if it is set one way, try the other.


For the next part I'm assuming you have another, functional PC.
If you are still not finding any boot media then make a live usb linux disk:
http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

Pick any of the recovery images or a preferred flavour of linux.

Once running on the new PC check the HDD for data, if you can see a windows install you would be best trying to do a windows repair which will require a windows install image if it is blank then you need to do a fresh install and leave some bad feedback for the seller.

OK, after some futzing about I got the BIOS open and the boot order was wrong. I've reorganized it and things seem to be running well.

Only problem is that the Windows 7 installer seems unable to create a partition in the hard drive for some reason. I'm in the process of adding one manually via command prompt, so hopefully this works.

Quote from Rappa Z :

OK, after some futzing about I got the BIOS open and the boot order was wrong. I've reorganized it and things seem to be running well.

Only problem is that the Windows 7 installer seems unable to create a partition in the hard drive for some reason. I'm in the process of adding one manually via command prompt, so hopefully this works.

What. I installed Windows 7 (OEM) dozen of times and this couldn't be easier to do in that installer. What's wrong with your system? Behaves really strange... Or is it a problem between monitor and chair?

Meh, probably.

edit: The problem is absolutely between the monitor and the chair. It's all relatively easy fixes (just had to change SATA modes), but I have no clue what I'm doing so it takes 4 hours to solve the stupidest problems.

Tech code - PBKAC (Problem between keyboard and chair)
Ticket resolved.....

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/ ... /tp/install-windows-7.htm

Good learning curve for you !
So what are the specs of the system ?

AMD FX-9590 8 Core CPU
MSI 970A-G46 AM3+ ATX AMD Motherboard
Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU cooler
Kingwin Case fans 120mm x6
MSI Radeon R9 270
Thermaltake Commander MS-I Snow White edition.
Corsair CX Series CX 500M Modular Power supply.
Corsair XMS3 8GB kit
Kingwin FPX-001 4 Channel fan controller
1TB HDD

Am I blind or there is no SSD drive for Windows? Maaan...

Quote from Mysho :

Am I blind or there is no SSD drive for Windows? Maaan...

Why should there be....oh great you get in to Windows in seconds....just to Windows kick you out in the same space of time....yes they are quicker, but from what I have experienced they are less that solid

Fordie

Have you ever used a SSD? I don't ever want to go back to a HDD for my OS. Even compared to my Samsung Spinpoint F3's in Raid it's a lot faster.

Oh, and lets not forget the noise that HDD's make after a few years. My 4 F3's make my PC sound like it wants to take off.

Yes Bose, I have used SSD, and use them all the time (for work) but the amount we go through, and how much agro they, and we as in support get, I would not say they are solid.

They are good for the casual person like me and you, but for heavy/hardcore/always on stuff....you cannot beat a SAS Raid 5 setup, excluding the noise...but just turn your speakers up

SSD are faster, there is no doubt, but unless you have a blank cheque to throw at them, Raid them, apart from loading Windows faster, what else to they really provide...it doesn't speed up gaming, it might load your page file quicker, but then you are lacking Ram if your PF is that big...seriously for what you pay, HD are still more reliable that SSD's....at the moment

Fordie

Actually I have found a use for them....a Backup device..there is no working components, and there access time is quicker, so over night backups are brilliant, forgot to mention that

Fordie

Imagine this little SSD will save a minute per one boot (hypothetically). Now imagine how much times you turn on your PC a day... And count it in let's say 5-6 years timeline.

You can imagine how much time this will save... and that's only simple PC boot. SSD wins for me, just because of I am less nerved and hate waiting. :P

I turn my PC on/off maybe once a week...

Bad example. I turn it off to save electricity every time it's turned on.

A modern system can easily idle below 20W so that's not really a problem. But yeah, having it on if you don't use it is still not smart.

Anyway, a 120GB SSD is cheap right now, so it's a no-brainer IMO.