FIXMBR Warning

[David]

I've been trying to clone a HD with XP.
Clone is failing at around 98-99%. Source drive boots and works fine.

After numerous attempts (each documented), I've come to the conclusion that
MS is messing with the MBR as believe I've ruled out anything else.

Never had an MBR issue before, but in executing FIXMBR in Recovery I get a
warning:

"This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid mbr.
Fixmbr may damage the drive"

Is this a standard warning for XP?

 

[John John - MVP]

Yes, it always gives that warning.

John

 

[Twayne]

Yes, it always gives that warning.

WHAT? NO, it does NOT "always" give that warning! It gives that
warning when it cannot identify the data currently in the MBR sector.

 

[John John - MVP]

WHAT? NO, it does NOT "always" give that warning! It gives that
warning when it cannot identify the data currently in the MBR sector.

And I'm sure that you must have tried it before you posted? Fixmbr
*ALWAYS* displays an error message regardless of the state of the MBR.

John

 

[Peter Foldes]

Twayne


Regardless the MBR will always give that warning

 

[smlunatick]

I've been trying to clone a HD with XP.
Clone is failing at around 98-99%.    Source drive boots and works fine.

After numerous attempts (each documented), I've come to the conclusion that
MS is messing with the MBR as believe I've ruled out anything else.

Never had an MBR issue before, but in executing FIXMBR in Recovery I get a
warning:

"This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid mbr.
  Fixmbr may damage the drive"

Is this a standard warning for XP?

What software did you use to do the clone? The "cloning" software
will copy the MBR but it also changes the MBR. With this change, MS's
FIXMBR will give this message.

 

[Twayne]

And I'm sure that you must have tried it before you posted? Fixmbr
*ALWAYS* displays an error message regardless of the state of the MBR.

John

Yes. Ran it on a dual Xeon 1.7 GHz Dell workstation in back of me; my
wife's machine. Also about a week ago on another client's machine. I
choose not to run it on my production machine and my sandbox needs to be
re-imaged so it's not available either.
I understand those saying it always has that same message but it is
only "usually", not always.
By saying "always", the reader depending on the advice will assume he
has a problem if he doesn't see the warning. Things just work that way.
There is always a message but it's not "that" warning:
In both instances, it did not say:Well, it "always" would if the MBR were non-standard or invalid; I've
seen the message plenty of times, even when I've been sure nothing was
wrong with it; so what "non-standard" means is actually a mystery to
me.

 

[John John (MVP)]

Yes. Ran it on a dual Xeon 1.7 GHz Dell workstation in back of me; my
wife's machine. Also about a week ago on another client's machine. I
choose not to run it on my production machine and my sandbox needs to be
re-imaged so it's not available either.
I understand those saying it always has that same message but it is
only "usually", not always.
By saying "always", the reader depending on the advice will assume he
has a problem if he doesn't see the warning. Things just work that way.
There is always a message but it's not "that" warning:

In both instances, it did not say:
Well, it "always" would if the MBR were non-standard or invalid; I've
seen the message plenty of times, even when I've been sure nothing was
wrong with it; so what "non-standard" means is actually a mystery to
me.

You're lying, Twayne, you didn't run the command on any box! The fixmbr
error message has been present ever since Microsoft introduced the
Recovery Console with Windows 2000 and it wasn't changed when Microsoft
released the XP version of the Recovery Console, this is Micorsoft's
official word on this:

"The fixmbr command causes this error message to be displayed on your
computer system whenever you run the command, regardless of the state of
the Master Boot Record (MBR)."

Note: "whenever" and "regardless".

This is easy enough to test, but there is no sense going into the
details of the test because you regularly post nonsense without trying
anything and when that isn't enough you just lie and invent things!

John

 

[Unknown]

You're lying, Twayne, you didn't run the command on any box! The fixmbr
error message has been present ever since Microsoft introduced the
Recovery Console with Windows 2000 and it wasn't changed when Microsoft
released the XP version of the Recovery Console, this is Micorsoft's
official word on this:

"The fixmbr command causes this error message to be displayed on your
computer system whenever you run the command, regardless of the state of
the Master Boot Record (MBR)."

Note: "whenever" and "regardless".

This is easy enough to test, but there is no sense going into the details
of the test because you regularly post nonsense without trying anything
and when that isn't enough you just lie and invent things!

John

That's been his character all along.

 

[Bill in Co.]

You're lying, Twayne, you didn't run the command on any box! The fixmbr
error message has been present ever since Microsoft introduced the
Recovery Console with Windows 2000 and it wasn't changed when Microsoft
released the XP version of the Recovery Console, this is Micorsoft's
official word on this:

"The fixmbr command causes this error message to be displayed on your
computer system whenever you run the command, regardless of the state of
the Master Boot Record (MBR)."

Note: "whenever" and "regardless".

This is easy enough to test, but there is no sense going into the
details of the test because you regularly post nonsense without trying
anything and when that isn't enough you just lie and invent things!

John

I don't see what he gets out of doing that, though.

 

[Unknown]

Very simply; he's trying to impress people. His method is erroneous however.

 

[David]

What software did you use to do the clone? The "cloning" software

will copy the MBR but it also changes the MBR.

How (what modification and where) does the cloning software make to the MBR?

I've been trying to clone a HD with XP.
Clone is failing at around 98-99%. Source drive boots and works fine.

After numerous attempts (each documented), I've come to the conclusion
that
MS is messing with the MBR as believe I've ruled out anything else.

Never had an MBR issue before, but in executing FIXMBR in Recovery I get a
warning:

"This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid mbr.
Fixmbr may damage the drive"

Is this a standard warning for XP?

What software did you use to do the clone? The "cloning" software
will copy the MBR but it also changes the MBR. With this change, MS's
FIXMBR will give this message.

 

[bertieboy]

You're lying, Twayne, you didn't run the command on any box! The
fixmbr error message has been present ever since Microsoft introduced
the Recovery Console with Windows 2000 and it wasn't changed when
Microsoft released the XP version of the Recovery Console, this is
Micorsoft's official word on this:

"The fixmbr command causes this error message to be displayed on your
computer system whenever you run the command, regardless of the state
of the Master Boot Record (MBR)."

Note: "whenever" and "regardless".

This is easy enough to test, but there is no sense going into the
details of the test because you regularly post nonsense without trying
anything and when that isn't enough you just lie and invent things!

John

But, from a relative newbie, is it OK to go ahead and run fixmbr with
that message? From what I'm reading, the discussion doesn't appear to
say 'if you see this message go no further'.
I have used this in the past but it was usually a nail-biting time as I
wasn't sure what was going to happen!

 

[John John - MVP]

But, from a relative newbie, is it OK to go ahead and run fixmbr with
that message? From what I'm reading, the discussion doesn't appear to
say 'if you see this message go no further'.
I have used this in the past but it was usually a nail-biting time as I
wasn't sure what was going to happen!

Usually, yes. But if you use certain third party boot manager to
prepare the disk or if you use things like Go-Back then you should not
use the command. Fixmbr with Go-Back is a definite no-no, with third
party boot managers it depends on how it created the partitions, some
boot managers can create more than 4 primary partitions or they may use
special partitions to handle the rest of the disk, with these kind of
tools fixmbr is a no-no. But with boot manager like the Linux GRUB or
LILO loaders using fixmbr is an effective way of dislodging them. Of
course, when you are needing to use this command you may be already
experiencing severe disk problems so each case can be different.

John

 

[fukerfull]

I've been trying to clone a HD with XP.
Clone is failing at around 98-99%.    Source drive boots and works fine.

After numerous attempts (each documented), I've come to the conclusion that
MS is messing with the MBR as believe I've ruled out anything else.

Never had an MBR issue before, but in executing FIXMBR in Recovery I get a
warning:

"This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid mbr.
  Fixmbr may damage the drive"

Is this a standard warning for XP?

I Had a windows file missing error then i decided to do a fix boot/
mbr
got that message went ahead and
no luck with fixmbr
so i decided to format my laptop wich was a 160 gig partitioned
running 2 operating systems
so insert xp disc blah blah blah and to my shock horror my 160 gig hd
is now only 73 gig in totall
the other 80 gig or so has tottally disapeared the only way it can be
seen is with a special hard drive sector scanner
and it calls up unrecoverable errors
hard drive still works but is half the size !!!!!

 

[thatguy]

Congratulations on the usual dick-measuring you is both always micropenii. Likeh deh gram are? General advice: do not dignify ignorance with a response. hint hint