I ran a defrag with a 3rd party program and now my PC wont boot

John_Mc

Hi,

I ran a defrag using a 3rd party application. Everything appeared fine, and my problem only occurred when I went to start the computer the next day.

It is a Dell XPS 710 with Windows Media Centre edition.

When it boots up, it says Loading PBR for Descriptor 2...done.
Bad PBR

I have tried to run chkdsk /r but it immediately says that the volume appears to have an unrecoverable error. However, I have run the Hard drive diagnostics and both of my SATA drives passed.

Is there anything else I can do to restore the MBR/PBR without losing all my files? I work in the I.T sector so am pretty capable if pointed in the right direction.

Thanks very much in advance.
John

blackgold>>

Hey john the defrag with windows is perfectly fine sometimes using third party tools is a waste of time.

About your problem pbr is the partition boot record or volume boot record it's the first sector of a logical partition not to be confussed with the master boot record which is the first sector on the physcial disc .

The master boot record finds a partition marked as active in the partition table then it loads the pbr which then loads the bootloader ie ntldr .

Anywya going by your error it means that something is wrong on the second partition . On dell computers theres 3 partitions 1 for the operating system one for preboot tools(recovery)and one with a copy of windows to restore.

The best way out of this situation would be to take out the harddisk and plug it into another computer so you can copy it to another oneharddisk so you can recover your files. Then just reinstall windows by pressing f11 or f12 or whatever it is on dells at boot time .

If you really want to try and fix it then i suggest you start reading up on how hard disks work how operating systems boot etc mainly the mbr and partition table.There's some tools that can gelp you aswell testdisk and

Also a good idea is to back up the mbr onto a disc just incase something like this happens again.

usefull links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

and this tool can recover your pbr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

Just a hint don't use fdisk /mbr or fixmbr anything like that because it won't help you in this situation.

If you need any help editing the pbr gimme a shout.
You could even email me your mbr and i could edit it and email it back to you i can show you how if you need to do it.

John_Mc

blackgold>> wrote: »

Hey john the defrag with windows is perfectly fine sometimes using third party tools is a waste of time.

About your problem pbr is the partition boot record or volume boot record it's the first sector of a logical partition not to be confussed with the master boot record which is the first sector on the physcial disc .

The master boot record finds a partition marked as active in the partition table then it loads the pbr which then loads the bootloader ie ntldr .

Anywya going by your error it means that something is wrong on the second partition . On dell computers theres 3 partitions 1 for the operating system one for preboot tools(recovery)and one with a copy of windows to restore.

The best way out of this situation would be to take out the harddisk and plug it into another computer so you can copy it to another oneharddisk so you can recover your files. Then just reinstall windows by pressing f11 or f12 or whatever it is on dells at boot time .

If you really want to try and fix it then i suggest you start reading up on how hard disks work how operating systems boot etc mainly the mbr and partition table.There's some tools that can gelp you aswell testdisk and

Also a good idea is to back up the mbr onto a disc just incase something like this happens again.

usefull links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

and this tool can recover your pbr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

Just a hint don't use fdisk /mbr or fixmbr anything like that because it won't help you in this situation.

If you need any help editing the pbr gimme a shout.
You could even email me your mbr and i could edit it and email it back to you i can show you how if you need to do it.

Hi,

First off, thanks very much for such an informative reply.

I'm thinking hooking the HD up as a Slave to another computer will be the best option.

But I'd like to try sending you the MBR first. How do I go about retrieving this?

Thanks
John

blackgold>>

Hi john,

This is worth a try before we do any complicated stuff.
The first thing to do is to boot up into windows using your windows cd and go to the recovery console,

Then when your in that type fixboot and then restart the computer and take out the cd and see if windows boots now.

If not then i'll do the mbr and vbr with you.

John_Mc

blackgold>> wrote: »

Hi john,

This is worth a try before we do any complicated stuff.
The first thing to do is to boot up into windows using your windows cd and go to the recovery console,

Then when your in that type fixboot and then restart the computer and take out the cd and see if windows boots now.

If not then i'll do the mbr and vbr with you.

I read that running Fixboot can restrict access to the partitions for good though?

Is there any risk here? I've a lot of work, movies, games, photos & music that I really want to avoid losing

blackgold>>

No your fine don't worry.

John_Mc

blackgold>> wrote: »

No your fine don't worry.

Hi,

I tried running Fixboot but it says:

"Fixboot cannot find the system drive, or the specified drive is not valid".

Running out of options here I think

Gadgetman496

John_Mc wrote: »

Hi,

I tried running Fixboot but it says:

"Fixboot cannot find the system drive, or the specified drive is not valid".

Running out of options here I think

Try running the "FIXMBR" command.

-

Lazarus2.0

Personally , I'd slave the drive and save any data before attempting anything more complex than a system restore . If a drive is failing I'd rather recover my photos , vids , etc than an operating system you can reinstal on a new hard drive with ease . Once you've backed up the important stuff you can stick the drive back in and try recovery console or whatever .
It may well be that the defrag utility has just moved MBR/PBR files but that would be unusual - what defrag tool was it and what mode did you defrag in ?

blackgold>>

nessyguin wrote: »

Personally , I'd slave the drive and save any data before attempting anything more complex than a system restore

Ya just to be on the safe side backup like you said.



Boot up from your windows cd like before and try this at the command prompt BOOTCFG /DEFAULT

and reboot and see if that solves it.

If that doesn't work then go here



http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

download the file named "Windows 98 SE OEM"

put a floppy into your drive and format it

then click on the boot98se.exe file you downloaded this will c reat a boot disk with a load of tools on it.

Now when thats done download this


ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/head.zip

extract and copy only the MBRUTILD.exe to the floppy

Now all the tools are there so reboot and windows98 should start up and give you a command prompt

Now run this command to backup the mbr (master boot record)

mbrutild /S=mbr.bin

you can upload the mbr.bin file here when your finished.

Hope it goes smoothly.

John_Mc

nessyguin wrote: »

Personally , I'd slave the drive and save any data before attempting anything more complex than a system restore . If a drive is failing I'd rather recover my photos , vids , etc than an operating system you can reinstal on a new hard drive with ease . Once you've backed up the important stuff you can stick the drive back in and try recovery console or whatever .
It may well be that the defrag utility has just moved MBR/PBR files but that would be unusual - what defrag tool was it and what mode did you defrag in ?

I used http://www.disktrix.com/ and needless to say, I will not be using again!

I have an external HD on order so when that arrives I'm gonna boot up into Ubuntu Live on CD, and copy my files over before trying that FixMBR command.

Thanks for all the help lads, really appreciated!