Latest Vista Update and now boot probs?

I used windows update yesterday to update vista as it said there were updates available. I updated the system and then restarted.

Now when I boot my machin after POST it tells me the boot sector is missing. The only way to get back in to windows is to Press F8 during POST and then select my main HD, then it boots in to windows.

How do I fix this and why would a windows update do this?

Could be a coincidence. Sounds like your BIOS battery is borked.

/me shrugs

It can't be that as I replaced it about 6 months ago. I'll check it again though to make sure that it's not that causing the issue.

I guess you could try resetting your BIOS via the jumper on the mobo, or whatever.

You do have the 'Auto detect boot devices', or whatever it's called, selected, right?

Do newer mobo's still have that? I Don't know.

I have a strange incidence occasionally with my fujitsu siemens machine. I have XP vista and Ubuntu installed on it. Normally i dont get any problems but occasionally after vista has been running and allowed to hibernate or run out of power then the laptop will either; not power up at all, the screen is black, or the hard disk is not recognised.

The only way to fix it is:
Remove the battery (as in main battery, not bios) and power lead, press the button to help discharge any remaining juice, wait 10 seconds, then plug in the power, then press on, THEN put the battery back.

When the system loads up, the date is back to like 2007, but the day and time are correct?!?. Its almost as if it is just effecting the year and other BIOS settings somehow. Still it works alright after that.

It's fixed. It was the BIOS not detetcting boot devices properly for some reason. I took the battery out and reapplied the settings and saved and now the problem seems to be gone.

ta for pointing me in the right direction. :)

You can kill a CMOS battery in a matter of seconds if you don't handle it properly. Edges/bottom are +, top is -. If you grab hold of it with anything but the edges you can knacker it even before its got anywhere near the motherboard.

Being stared at too hard will cause the CMOS battery to spontaneously combust, so *always* keep your eyes tightly closed whenever you open your PC's case.

I'm getting more problems now. It now says with every boot that that BootMGR is missing then it says to press ctrl+alt+delete to restart.

I've checked out some sites and am about to try a bootrec /fixboot with the Vista DVD.

If that doesn't fix it then it's got to be hardware related yet again. :/

Could be a dying HD, I guess.

Yep it could possibly be a dying HD.

I tried fixboot and it didn't make a difference. If I leave my Vista DVD in the drive the system boots fine. It first tries to boot to DVD (i don't press any keys) then it boots in to windows.

Whatever is on the DVD is making it work. Can't for the life of me figure it out.

I'm going to back everything up though just in case a HD does die. :/

I fixed it. It was a bit of a "dyslexia for cure found" fault which I'm not afraid to admit.

Basically I had set both my hd's to boot from within the bios. It was trying to find the BOOTMGR on the second drive but of course it's only on the first boot drive so it through the error.

I set the first boot device as CDROM, the second as HD and disabled the 3rd. Now it works.

:/ 4 and half hours, a reformat and reinstall, boot fixing and rebuilding and in the end the error was because the 2nd drive was trying to boot also. :/