How-To Geek

I have a prebuilt HP media center PC. It is no longer factory original however.

Recently my original hard drive went into failure (a pattern I have seen. I only buy HP computers and within 3 years the original hard drives always fail). I did a little research since this is my third failed factory hard drive in an HP computer, and learned that they are built with the minimum possible PSU to power ONLY the factory parts. I had added a graphics card, and it was suggested to me the inadequate power had damaged my drive over time. This lead me to a few upgrades.

So at this point I have upgraded from a 300w PSU to a 500w PSU. It has been installed and tested and works perfect. With the new PSU, suddenly the hard drive fired up again but it was short lived and went back into failure. While it was operational though, I added 2gb of RAM... You know, cause you can never have enough RAM. lol

So when the drive went back into failure, I caved and replaced the drive. I was a smart cookie and remembered to remove the graphics card (an upgrade from literally the day I bought the computer) since it was not an original part, but forgot to remove the seemingly harmless stick of RAM.

I started the process of installing the new OS, and everything went smoothly until the "expanding files" phase. It was stuck at 0%. I gave it a good 2 hours to work itself out, but I knew it was a lost cause. I no longer heard any drives spinning. So I pondered, and remembered the RAM. I shut it down, disconnected, and removed the RAM. I also reset the BIOS to factory while I was at it to make sure everything read properly from the BIOS when I tried again. Musta knocked my optic drives cable loose cause at first it was missing, but a reattachment and it was okay again.

So now I boot up again. Another mistake I forget to boot from the optic drive. D'oh! it tells me the hard drive is in failure, I assume it is from the incomplete OS on the drive. I reboot, this time REMEMBER to boot from optic and now... it says "bootmgr is missing" *head desk* tried twice now. Losing hope. Help please, I know I have done something else wrong I am missing.

Thanks in advance (please don't laugh at me :-P)

Sorry I don't mean to be confusing. I am going a mile a minute trying to sort this out.

I am using Windows 7. I bought a new builders version, 64 bit (It was 64 bit before the failure, so I bought the same replacements)

If it's the motherboard, I will die.........

Yay! I took the RAM out already anyway though. Easy to put back in when this mess is sorted (I read somewhere that when replacing a hard drive in a prebuilt you want only the factory hardware connected to the motherboard because windows pulls info from the BIOS and factory PCs have the BIOS set in some manner to only the parts they installed. Was this misinformation?)

I did not format the hard drive, but I have done this once before and the hard drive did not need formatting. I will admit however, it was 6 years ago.. maybe something was different then. How do I format the hard drive? Should I wipe it clean again? How do I do that (Never had to before)? Since the bootmgr error is occuring when I boot from the optic drive (DVD) how will formatting the hard drive fix that error?

Sorry for all the questions. This is the first time I have done this and had this problem.

Yes. I double checked since you asked, and 1st boot device is CD-ROM Group. I arrowed down to the drive to check the priority there and it also says 1st priority.

I even booted, and used [esc] to get to the boot menu and manually selected the optic drive as boot.

Still tells me bootmgr is missing. :(

Edit, new posts added

I do not have another bootable disk. This is a real copy of Windows 7 (builders version) I JUST purchased with legit stickers and all. I already booted with this disk once, but as I mentioned before it got stuck on 0% for two hours on the "expanding files" phase and I no longer heard either drive spinning and working.

Gave it another go, and now it says "reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press any key" I opened the drive and closed the drive again (with the windows disk inside) and still got this message.

Jynestia, please remember you have 30 minute edit window

Mike

I shall try. thanks. -.- just what I need, another part to possibly replace..... I will return when I have tested the disk.

Added:

Ok so, the disk DOES work in my other computer. I am quite confused because It has already worked once, why not now?? I sent a communication to the tech support at the store I purchased from, they said it was a defective hard drive and to return it for a replacement.

BUT, if it is booting from the optic drive, then why would a bad hard drive be causing the "bootmgr" error since the computer isn't reading it. Their guy was unable or unwilling to explain this (it was via online chat)

I don't want to replace parts that don't need replacing....

The optic drive passed the test that the motherboard does. Is there a way to test the motherboard?? I don't know what the symptoms of a failing motherboard are.

If it helps, a while back the optic drive did test bad and made some awful loud spinning noises, and it turned out it was jammed with a disk not properly seated. This caused the drawer to be stuck partially open. I removed the offending disk and it works fine after that.

if I boot without anything I get the same error, or a hard drive imminent failure error, or "to boot from a cd please insert disk and press any key to continue" on repeat no matter if I then put the disk in the drive or not.

I am replacing the optic drive with a spare from another computer I don't use. I am exchanging the hard drive based on the failure error. Trying the install again as soon as I get that far. This time I am going to go ahead and partition the drive, I found a place that has a program I can burn to disk to do it.

But I can not find anything to format a hard drive when I have no OS available to use ATM. The OS is needed to format the hard drive, but a formatted hard drive is needed to install an OS....

You can also use the free version of Partition Wizard. Scroll down the page and download the bootable version.
http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

So brand new optical drive, brand new hard drive, motherboard alternately tests them bad or can't see them all together. Once I got both to work, and it asked for a driver for the optical drive, and when I put in the disc it couldn't find the driver. I throw in the towel. I am not sure I am willing to go get a motherboard too. I haven't built a PC in years. I was hoping for a simple hard drive swap.

I am afraid if I swap the motherboard, something else will come up like the processer being bad too. (although I have no reason to believe that)