Challenge: Fix Mbr on a pc with no Floppy

KdjaCL

Mbr is buggered Windows Xp recovery just refuses to see the MBR, added it as a 2nd drive on another pc and tried a few programs none seem to wipe and fix.

How do you fix an MBr without a floppy drive ?


kdjac

SolarNexus

what file system? FAT / NTFS etc

KdjaCL

It can be whatever , atm its ntfs.
Formatting doesnt fix it as its not part of the partition.


kdjac

DonkeyStyle \o/

Hmmm, could you boot off a '98 CD and fdisk /mbr ?

KdjaCL

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Hmmm, could you boot off a '98 CD and fdisk /mbr ?

Trtied that earlier.

"Error nowhere to save original MBR"
Never seen that error before.

kdjac

SolarNexus

the reason I asked what filesystem is that NTFS contains TWO master boot records just for this very reason.

I'll checkup microsofts website later, but you should try yourself. You have much more chance of recovery with NTFS than FAT.

btw. in the meantime, if you need the data off the disk in a hurry I used "getDataBack NTFS" when my disk went wonky; costs $79 but I'm sure theres a trial version

http://www.runtime.org/products.htm

KdjaCL

No rush on it its a reinstall, for the moment i replaced the drive and using it as a secondary.

But bugging me why it wont let me overwrite it.

Caldera Dr Dos doesnt like it either keeps saying "MBR is mssing , rewrite y/n " click yes and it says nowhere to save MBR


kdjac

jabaroon

KdjaC wrote:

No rush on it its a reinstall, for the moment i replaced the drive and using it as a secondary.

But bugging me why it wont let me overwrite it.

Caldera Dr Dos doesnt like it either keeps saying "MBR is mssing , rewrite y/n " click yes and it says nowhere to save MBR


kdjac

I had a similar problem recently and tried everything to re-create the MBR. In the end, I had to install a new version of windows on the same drive (without overwriting the original). The install created a new MBR and I was able to select my original winxp version from the win boot menu. I then edit'ed my boot.ini to reset my original back as the defauly OS. Convoluted, but worked when nothing else seemed to?!?!?

Jab

Prior Of Taize

if you can get into the repair console off the xp disc you can type fixmbr.

If thats ****ed then go to http://www.komplett.ie and get a new pc

SolarNexus

try this:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_llfmt_what.html

it will zero-out a hard drive, it may not work but given the options available its at least an alternative to doing nuthin'

davmigil

Make a bootable CD of http://gag.sourceforge.net/ and install that to the MBR (and add XP into its boot list)