Here is a history: There is this laptop PC HP Compaq 6720s (bios v. 1.2d), which was preinstalled with Vista. Now, the user decided to wipe the harddrive using bios utility to wipe all data from harddrive, in order to install windows XP instead. Trouble is, after trying to install XP it cant be initialized. This because every time you try this, the computer still tires to start from HDD, even tho if made to boot from either usb HDD or optical drives. now as a compromise i installed PART PE in the drive (using usb to sata wires), but get BOOTMGR missing error instead. Regular fix to this would be to start computer using the windows install cd, but as stated, BIOS rather launches only to the HDD. So i need instructions how to rebuild BOOTMGR on the drive without using optical drive of the laptop. Is there any way i can do this, without plugging the hdd to my own computer and disconnecting everything on it in order to repair this? end result being, i could use part pe to install windows or installing windows xp other way around, i allready tried install via USB drive and optical, but current version of bios sucks in this.
I solved the problem: What i did was take out the computers harddrive and put it on the USB to sata dock, and combined it to my main computer. I erased the partitions and created partition of a size 10gig. Setting it active and placing on it usb windows 7 install files. Now on laptops computer is its own install files, not on external drive, ITS own. Now, to make the drive bootable, i ran the BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 [drive] from the boot folder on windows install dvd, so it was able to start by itself. Install was direct this time, after reinstalling the harddrive back to the laptop, and rebooted it, it started to windows install, and asked regular guestions. Now i was able to make new partition and install windows 7 to it. Windows 7 install dont anylonger demand external (aka disk 1 instead of disk 0) for installation of files. Thus it can actually be set to install from same drive it will be going to install to (from disk 0, part 1 to disk 0, part2)... i thought this was impossible, but however i look at it, it is possible. In the end i had on windows 2 partitions, 1 (install) and 2 windows. After a small fix, as i had set the partition to be active, i was able to give it a drive letter. All partitions were now shown and i was able to set windows install to back up drive image of windows to it.
