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On an old netbook I have which is (was) running Windows XP, and when I boot, I get a BOOTMGR is missing error, but according to this site I should actually get NTLDR is missing instead. I find this vexing. Is there a fix for it? (Exact error: BOOTMGR is missing (newline) Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart)

user1610406
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  • Does the drive appear in the bios IDE menu pages? If this happened randomly, without any software changes, it's likely the hard drive isn't visible to the bios - either because of loose cables (like the link mentions) or a physically damaged drive. If you can boot from a USB CD/DVD drive, and you know the hard drive is physically ok, you can fix the boot files using a windows install CD in recovery mode. – jdh Jan 02 '13 at 15:53

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This message usually indicates that the boot sector is damaged or missing. The boot sector is a region of your hard disk that contains information that is used to load your operating system. If a boot failure is detected when your PC is starting, you may receive this error message.

To resolve this issue, use the steps in the following KB article:

You receive Error message: “Bootmgr is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart” when starting Windows

Arash
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    BOOTMGR Errors Apply To BOOTMGR issues apply to Windows 7 and Windows Vista operating systems only. Windows XP does not utilize BOOTMGR. The equivalent function in Windows XP is NTLDR. – Arash Jan 02 '13 at 15:55
  • Exactly, that's why I'm confused – user1610406 Jan 11 '13 at 00:59