BOOTMGR is missing

[sonts]

Hi all, i've been using freenas 8.3.1 for a few months now, running from a 4gb usb. we had a blackout last night, and so i went to reboot the nas this morning, only to be confronted with 'bootmgr is missing, press ctr alt del to restart'.
So far i have tried:
rebooting
reinstalling 8.3.1 on same usb
reinstalling 8.3.1 on different usb
installing current (9.2.0) free nas on original and other usb
used different programs to mount iso to usbs

does anyone have a solution to this issue? doesn't seem as though it has been encountered before. (or its very basic and im missing something)

Alternatively, is there at least a way of accessing the data on the drives to ensure i haven't lost anything?

Thanks in advance,

sonts

 

[HolyK]

Check if the USB is visible in BIOS and if its properly set as the first boot device. That power outage might cause that bios was reset to default settings and usb is not usualy on the first place. So the boot seq is probably looking at one of your disks where it hangs.

Reminds me the old days of despreate rebooting my PC over and over and then realising that i forgot diskette in the drive :D

Sent from my Motorola Photon Q via Tapatalk

 

[sonts]

Check if the USB is visible in BIOS and if its properly set as the first boot device. That power outage might cause that bios was reset to default settings and usb is not usualy on the first place. So the boot seq is probably looking at one of your disks where it hangs.

Reminds me the old days of despreate rebooting my PC over and over and then realising that i forgot diskette in the drive :D

Sent from my Motorola Photon Q via Tapatalk

HolyK, thanks mate yeah i did try that. I have never actually bothered changing the boot order and just manually did it on power up. in any case, changed, unchanged still the same issue.

would i be right in thinking the boot manager its referring to is actually within the bios and not part of freenas?

 

[gpsguy]

No, it's looking for your flash drive.

Try booting the flash drive on another machine and verify it's working. If not, try creating it again. Is the other flash drive you used at least 4Gb? Some 2's aren't large enough.

When recreating it, I'd stay with 8.x doe now. Make sure you follow the directions in the manual to install FreeNAS on the flash drive.


Sent from my phone

 

[sonts]

No, it's looking for your flash drive.

Try booting the flash drive on another machine and verify it's working. If not, try creating it again. Is the other flash drive you used at least 4Gb? Some 2's aren't large enough.

When recreating it, I'd stay with 8.x doe now. Make sure you follow the directions in the manual to install FreeNAS on the flash drive.


Sent from my phone

usb boots fine on another pc. the other drive i tried is exactly the same 4gb Toshiba that was running fine for months. i also tried a 16gb just to be sure. same error. thanks though

 

[sonts]

@gpsguy, you made me go back and check how i installed. previously i have been using the iso file and loading to the usb with rufus, as that worked a while ago. i decided to try the .xz file method and it worked! i do need to set up the nas again from scratch but its operational! thanks!

still cant explain how i was getting that issue after just a power failure though

 

[gpsguy]

Often the flash drive gets corrupted after an improper shutdown, like a power failure.

That's why it's suggested that you use a UPS and configure it to shutdown FreeNAS gracefully after a power failure.

Once you get FreeNAS reconfigured, save a copy of the configuration file.

 

[Ronse]

For error: "BOOTMGR is missing, Press Ctrl +Alt + Del to restart. "
I tried many advices:
1. Reset BIOS default settings - done- error still there.
2. Reset the hard drive - done - error still there.
3. Run hard disk test- done-passed-error still there.
4.Respond to 'hard disk not found' message - N/A, as I'm not getting it.
5. System recovery - like I said, when I try to start system recovery I'm getting the error screen immediately.
...

Finally, it was the English topic http://www.windowspasswordsrecovery.com/fix-windows/bootmgr-is-missing.html fix problem efficiently with "Windows Boot Genius" recommended.

 

[Cupcake]

I would strongly advice NOT to try and "fix" a windows bootmanager on a freenas system, as proposed by Ronse.

I still believe that the BIOS is not trying to boot from the USB drive. Some mainboards have two settings which need to be made:

1. Boot device priority: Here you choose whether it shall try to boot from CD, from Harddisk, from a removable device or even from network first. Go with harddisk here if removable doesn't work!
2. Second there's a harddisk priority list where you can specify from which harddisk to boot. Some BIOS will show the USB flashdrive as a harddisk and you need to put it to top priority. With these BIOSes you need to configure both correctly, steps 1 and 2 here.