Reply With QuoteAwesome fix. I had a half baked install of bootmagic on an xp machine. Fix MBR worked great (although after reading the warning in FIXMBR about ruining partitions etc., I held my breath until I had successfully rebooted into XP). Thanks for the fix.
Boot from the windows XP CD, press the "R" key in the setup in order to start the restoration console. Select your windows XP installation from the list, and enter the administrator password.
Enter the command: "FIXMBR" (without the quotes) at the input prompt and confirm the next question with a "Y" (without the quotes). Use exit to restore the computer.
I had to use this on a PC that I had corrupted the MBR with by using a boot manager.
Worked perfectly. This may have been posted before, and if so, forgive me. If not, now you know how to repair your MBR. By the way MBR stands for Master Boot Record. THis procedure kind of replaced Fdisk I think.
BB
Awesome fix. I had a half baked install of bootmagic on an xp machine. Fix MBR worked great (although after reading the warning in FIXMBR about ruining partitions etc., I held my breath until I had successfully rebooted into XP). Thanks for the fix.
a word of caution.. sometimes there is no adminsitrator password entered (by you) but the program insists on a password.
microsoft admits there is a bug in its XP and there is a workaround for it. i know because it happened to me. it was no fun not realizing it was a bug until way after the fact and cure.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;308402
There's the knowledge base article from Microsoft that shows how to fix what cityman posted. Thanks cityman for your contribution. Luckily I didn't run into this issue, but now if users do, there is a fix.
http://phoenixfire.thenetdragon.net/referenced/fixmbr/
Well thanks for the tips, but on my HD both the FIXMBR and FIXBOOT commands did not do the trick. In the end, this is how I solved the problem:
I added an old 1GB hd to the primairy IDE controller, connected the drive I wanted to repair (a 40GB Maxtor HD) to the seconday IDE controller, installed windowsXP on the 1st drive (the 1GB drive). The broken disk was a Maxtor HD. I downloaded maxblast 3 for windows (not the floppy version or ISO version, which both should work also) and run maxblast 3 from the freshly installed XP. I corrected everything on the Maxtor 40GB drive (setting it as boot drive and making a new 15GB partition with NTFS).
Maxblast copied everything from the 1GB XP OS and builds up a new OS on the new partition. Shutdown the PC, removed the old 1GB HD and started the PC again...DONE
KUDOS to Maxtor!
Link for the maxtor software tools:
Maxtor sodtware download
(remember for using this trick you need a Maxtor HD)
Last edited by beyond3d; July 4th, 2004 at 10:43 AM.
For what it's worth... I have always just
booted off of a windows 98 boot disk and typed "fdisk /mbr" without
the quotes of course and voila, she b fixed...
Please advise me if this proceedure is a dangerous method, so far it has
worked for me...
thanks...
Jackpot
jackpot i've never tried your method since I dont use floppy drives...but does it work with xp. if so then the fdisk.exe must have never changed and should work fine.
----------------------------------------------------Originally Posted by phishhead
Yes, works fine with XP...
I got this info along time ago when i was playing around
with Lindows (Linspire) and couldn't get rid of the dual boot
screen, Lol
It also worked with "Xandros" for me too, but i wanted to be
sure not to mess up or cause any probs for anyone here..!
Thanks..!
JP
Yeah I would do that too if I had a floppy drive. I now use a clip drive instead of a floppy and have given the floppy the boot LMAO..
Nice tip though
Be VERY careful with FDISK /MBR. It rewrites the master boot record. If the machine is multi-booting XP and another OS, /MBR may blast away the boot loader, thus crippling multi-boot capability. It may also wreck multi-boot capabilities under Win 9x if programs've installed a boot manager that /MBR overwrites.
Thanks for the word of caution. Always pays to be cautious and before doing anything ask or research it.
Ok i have the stupid MBR problem and everytime i start the computer and if no WIndows XP CD iis inside the CD-ROM the windows wont start and it keep saying ..
Master Boot Record has changed.
Press any key to enter to restore master boot or something...
i tried doing fixmbr but didnt helpand it keeps coming...if i dnt insert the CD inside...so how do i fix this problem anyone help? thanks!
It's odd that this procedure doesn't work. Everytime I have had an MBR issue the fix I posted above worked.
You could try a few things...
Run a repair install
Reinstall over the existing installation
Or using the XP disk, make a new partition, and install XP that way. Then you'll be all set.
First of all, I have a Western Digital WD1000BB - 100 Gb 7200 RPM EIDE HDD. It is a secondary drive (no Executable files at all, just text, Pics, and music). It HAS been running fine for about 3 years until 11/18/2005. When booting the computer, I got a "S.M.A.R.T. imminent drive failure error" and said that the drive was bad and needed to be replaced. I thought it was referring to my PRIMARY drive so I disconnected the WD21000BB wrote Zero's to the Primary drive and then reloaded the OS. When booting up again after Re-connecting the WD1000BB, got the SAME error again. I powered OFF the computer and INPLUGGED the WD1000BB and rebooted the computer. The error did not re-appear. I powered off the computer and reconnected the WD1000 and booted up the computer again, and the error appeared. I allowed it to continue booting up. It booted up. The WD1000 was detected, BUT was showing "This drive is NOT FORMATED.I removed the drive and attached a DIFFERENT WD HDD. It booted up fine and showed ALL of the data on that HDD. Is there ANY THING I can do to RESTORE or Reconstruct the (MBR) for the partition and recover the data? This was NOT a bootable drive (no OS on it, just non-Executible files). I have not done ANYTHING to the drive since it failed. I have some irreplacable files on it. HELP!
Worf
Last edited by worf6161; November 25th, 2005 at 22:32 PM.
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