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Firstly DON’T PANIC as this problem is relatively easy to fix and it’s very unlikely that you’ve lost anything on your hard disk!

“Boot Manager is missing” instead of “BOOTMGR is compressed”:

If you’re seeing “BOOTMGR is compressed. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart”, please skip past this section.

“BOOTMGR is compressed” is a different problem to “Boot Manager is missing”, but if you are getting the latter, you still have a good chance of recovery.

Firstly, have you just installed a new hard drive? If so you definitely need to check the boot priority in your BIOS or CMOS, in fact it’s good practice to 100% eliminate this first anyway if you have more than one hard disk installed (please see the “How To Fix The Problem”, “Before you start” section below for more info how to do this).

If you don’t have the relevant Windows installation or recovery disk, please also see the section titled, “Download and Burn Windows 7 or Windows Vista Recovery Disks (32 and 64 bit)” lower down in this article. Here are some link to resolve this problem:

Please click here for Windows 7 instructions or

please click here for Windows Visa instructions.

Background to “BOOTMGR is compressed” Problem:

Windows Vista and Windows 7 includes some excellent safety measures to prevent people from accidentally destroying or damaging critical parts of the main operating system along with various ways to help users recover and/or repair the operating system should disaster strike. Unfortunately however if one accidentally compresses the entire bootable hard disk partition or even just the root directory including the file named “bootmgr”, windows won’t even start loading after the next reboot and surprisingly there’s no system warning messages warning of such a serious problem before compressing. Even on a dual boot or multi boot system with for instance Windows XP and Windows 7 installed, the problem will completely prevent even the boot menu from appearing, making it impossible to access either operating system. Instead of loading Windows or in the case of a multi boot system, instead of displaying the boot menu, the message “BOOTMGR is compressed. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart” on a black screen will appear and there’s no other option but to reset your machine or to power down.

I’m surprised that Microsoft haven’t at least set-up a fail safe automatic recovery option for this problem since all that’s effectively required to resolve the problem is to either uncompress the “Boot” directory and the “bootmgr” file in the root of the bootable partition or to rebuild the boot configuration data (BCD) which can also be done easily. Unfortunately now locked out of Windows, one has to find another way of accessing the main file system to resolve the problem which at least can be achieved by following some simple instructions.

How To Fix The Problem:

There’s more than one way to fix this problem, but this is one of the quickest methods:

Before You Start:

If you don’t have a Windows Vista or Windows 7 installation or recovery disk, please firstly see the section later in this article titled, “Download and Burn Windows 7 or Windows Vista Recovery Disks”. If you haven’t got a DVD or CD drive at all, please see the “Alternative Fix Methods” after the “Main Fix Instructions” below for a link to alternative instructions to fix the problem using a bootable USB flash drive / memory stick with freely downloadable software, this method also works if you have Windows XP with the problem. If you haven’t got a USB stick or a DVD/CD drive, then I recommend that you at least buy a cheap USB flash drive for around $10.

Main Fix Instructions:

Required: A Windows 7 or Windows Vista recovery or installation DVD for your system and a CD/DVD drive (download links are also included lower down in this article).

You will firstly need to ensure that your PC can boot from your CD / DVD drive, on some systems a message will appear where you’ll need to press any key to boot off a bootable CD / DVD not long after powering up and straight after the system detects / tests devices. If your PC still continues to display the error message even after inserting a bootable CD / DVD, you will need to go into your system BIOS or CMOS settings, you can often achieve this by pressing the DEL key during the initial tests when powering up. Different motherboards vary however, although one can usually see which key press is required on the initial start-up screen. You will need to change your boot order device priority so that the DVD drive takes first priority over the hard disk drive, then you’ll need to save your settings. If you have multiple hard disks, you will need to ensure that the same hard disk is used in the boot order as before. Since there’s numerous different BIOS and CMOS set-ups, I can’t explain in exact detail how to do this, but if in difficulty, please consult your motherboard manual (you can usually download manuals on-line) or speak to someone who has some technical knowledge of PCs.

This method repairs the boot manager, leaving the rest of the partition compressed or uncompressed as before. This method also has the advantage of being much quicker than some methods which involve decompressing the entire partition, plus if much of the drive was compressed, a full decompression wouldn’t be possible if disk space was low.

1….Boot off the relevant DVD for your operating system and press a key if/when you are prompted.

2….Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then click “Next”.

3….Click “Repair your computer”.

4….Click the operating system that you want to repair and then click “Next” (usually on C:).

5….From the “System Recovery Options” menu, choose “Command Prompt”.

6….Type the following commands exactly as written below, pressing return after each one:

       bootrec /fixmbr
       bootrec /fixboot
       bootrec /rebuildbcd
       exit

7…. Reboot your PC and test.

Alternative Fix Methods:

I will link to alternative instructions to fixing / repairing this problem:

FIX WITHOUT A CD/DVD DRIVE ON WINDOWS XP, VISTA AND WINDOWS 7 SYSTEMS:

This method involves downloading a Hirens boot disk and installing it on a USB flash drive. If you have a CD/DVD drive, you can of-course burn Hiren’s to this instead. Even though this method is designed for Windows XP, it will also work with Windows Vista and WIndows 7 systems too…

http://www.etcrcomputers.com/apps/forums/topics/show/1800801-bootmgr-is-compressed (also click on the tutorial to install Hirens onto a USB flash drive.)

ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE FIX FOR WINDOWS VISTA AND WINDOWS 7:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasetup/thread/ab6e743e-4e82-40d8-ac73-8fd56077b5fd/ (Instructions for Windows Vista, but works with Windows 7 similarly too)

Download and Burn Windows 7 or Windows Vista Recovery Disks (32 and 64 bit)

If you haven’t got the required installation or recovery disk to fix the problem, then don’t worry as here’s some links to sites that contain downloads links to correct recovery disk for your operating system. These disks only contain the files necessary for recovery and are therefore much smaller than a complete Windows installation disk. They are downloaded in .ISO format, ready to burn using your favourite disk burner software or by installing the recommended free burner software detailed further down in this section.

Windows 7 Recovery Disk Download (32 and 64 bit):

You must read and agree to the additional legal disclaimer below before downloading:

32 & 64 Bit (x86 and x64): http://cybernetnews.com/windows-7-recovery-disc/

Windows Vista Recovery Disk Download (32 and 64 bit)

You must read and agree to the additional legal disclaimer below before downloading:

32 Bit (x86): http://digiex.net/downloads/download-center-2-0/applications/956-windows-vista-32-bit-x86-recovery-disc.html

You must read and agree to the additional legal disclaimer below before downloading:

64 Bit (x64): http://digiex.net/downloads/download-center-2-0/applications/957-windows-vista-64-bit-x64-recovery-disc.html

(The above links were tested on the 28th September 2010!)

Additional Legal Disclaimer and Important Advice To Downloaders of the Above Links:
Please note that these disk images can NOT be used for installing Windows Vista or Windows 7 as they only contain the necessary files that are required for recovery purposes only. However, since some copyrighted Windows files are included on these recovery disks, to avoid copyright infringement to Microsoft, it is your responsibility to ensure that you possess a genuine licence for the relevant version of Windows before attempting to download any of these recovery disks and you therefore must agree to ensure you have this licence before using any of these links. These disk images are however NOT hosted on PJCNET Paranormal Marketing (this website) and it is therefore the responsibility of the owner of these websites to obtain Microsoft’s express consent before hosting these files (we don’t know if they have such consent). We will remove these links immediately if we are later informed that Microsoft do not consent to these files being readily available in the public domain.

Once downloaded, burn to a DVD or CD using suitable DVD/CD burner software. If you haven’t got any suitable burner software installed, you can quickly download one and I recommend either of the following freeware burners:

Free DVD Burner Software (Recommended):

BurnAware Free <<< download link
Very easy to use software that simplifies the majority of burn tasks while even supporting Blu-ray. If you need more advanced features you can optionally upgrade to the “Home” or “Professional” version, but you’re not nagged to upgrade and most people will only ever need the free version since it has the majority of features. Simply install and run the software, insert a blank DVD/CD, select “Burn Image” and select the location of the .ISO file you’ve downloaded, finally click the icon towards the bottom right to burn.

ImgBurn <<< download link
An easy to use burning utility that also has some advanced features for burning and creating images. There’s only one version of this software and it’s totally free. Simply install and run the software, insert a blank DVD/CD, select “Write image file to disc”, click on the magnifying glass toward the top right and locate the .ISO file you’ve downloaded, finally click to burn at the bottom of the window.

Legal Disclaimer

Please also see, “Additional Legal Disclaimer and Important Advice To Downloaders of the Above Links” as written in the article section above titled, “Download and Burn Windows 7 or Windows Vista Recovery Disks (32 and 64 bit)”. Although the author of this article has had first line experience in the field of PC technical support, you agree to take the advice of the article at your own risk, PJCNET cannot be held responsible for any adverse problems or loss caused directly or indirectly by following the instructions provided and we strongly advise people to seek qualified professional assistance if they have any important data on their hard drive. PJCNET cannot be held responsible for external links, especially external downloads, use at your own risk. Even though we try hard not to make mistakes, we cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies or mistakes in this article and it’s provided “as is”.

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