Need help with partition problems, bad PBR, MBR, etc

[stas007]

Hello again,

I'm restating my problem because the answers I received were not
helpful. I have a Dell laptop with XP Home and while trying to create a
Linux partition the Master Boot Record among other things was damaged.
A lot of my files were not backed up so just reinstalling XP is not an
option. I had a corrupted MBR before on another computer because of a
virus and I was able to get everything fixed, so I'm hoping the same is
possible again this time. The following describes what happened.



- I ran Partition Manager 7. It Listed 3 partitions and one free space;

partiton 1) FAT - 50 MB (contains Dell Utilities)

partiton 2) NTFS - 57 GB (contains all my stuff)

partiton 3) FAT - 3 GB (i think this was leftover data from when I
converted from FAT32 to NTFS)

4) free space, about 50 MB



- tried resizing partition 2 and it failed, so I deleted the contents
of partition 3 figuring I would install Linux there. The contents were
deleted but reformating the partition for Linux failed.

- then i took a one day break, rebooted several times, browsed the net,
downloaded stuff, all was working fine but then it got ugly.

- Opened Windows Partition Manager (don't recall the exact name of the
utility) which listed the same details as Partition Manager i.e. 3
partitions and 1 free space. I then set partition 3, the one whose
contents I had deleted, to "Active".

- Rebooted immediately. Didn't boot, message was "Bad PBR"

- then I ran DISKPART from the XP recovery disk, and deleted partition
3.

- On reboot the message was still "Bad PBR" (i think), so from the
recovery disk I ran FIXMBR.

- On reboot the message was "No bootable devices"

- starting to sweat and panic, I ran DISKPART to create a 10MB
partition inside the free space, figuring the system needs to see 3
partitions

- On reboot the message was still "No bootable devices", so I ran
FIXMBR again which before running alerted "This computer appears have a
non-standard or invalid boot-record. FIXMBR may damage your partition
tables if you proceed". I proceeded anyway and FIXMBR said "writing new
MBR...\device\hardisk0\partition0"

- the contents of boot.ini at this time are:
[boot loader]
timeout-30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows="Microsoft XP Home"
/fast detect /Noexecute=optout

- on reboot i selected to boot from the Dell Recovery and Utilities
option ( partition 1 i assume).

- ran tests for the hard disk and it detected only some bad blocks that
were far away from the start : "block 116233432 - incorrectable data
error or media is write-protected, Continue or abort Test?"

- I didn't abort and continued testing and it uncovered several other
blocks in the same region. (I had run Windows DefragDisk the day before
and there were a few damaged blocks and I figured these were the once
being detected.) I'm surprised the test did't uncover the MBR damage.

- For each damaged block I clicked "Continue testing" and it tested
about ten (the last block number I jotted down was 116236402). Then the
testing froze, I waited 15 minutes and turned off the laptop..

- I rebooted but the recovery disk took about 4 times longer to startup
and displayed "
"The path specified is not valid".
"C:>\"

- getting much uglier, I ran CHKDSK, CHKDSK C:, CHKDSK /r, with the
result being in each case: "The specified drive is not valid or there
is no disk in the drive". Tried other things which gave these messages:


- on CD Windows : "path or file specified not valid"

- on reboot: "hard-disk read failure"

- on DISKPART : "setup cannot access this disk" - 57 GB, Disk 0, id 0,
Bus 0

- on FIXBOOT: "cannot find the system drive"

- on MAP: D: \device\cdrom0

- on D:\dir, it listed all the files on the recovery disk...

=============================

So that's what happened.
Any suggestions as to what I should do now?

 

[Malke]

Hello again,

I'm restating my problem because the answers I received were not
helpful. I have a Dell laptop with XP Home and while trying to create
a Linux partition the Master Boot Record among other things was
damaged. A lot of my files were not backed up so just reinstalling XP
is not an option. I had a corrupted MBR before on another computer
because of a virus and I was able to get everything fixed, so I'm
hoping the same is possible again this time. The following describes
what happened.

(snip very long story)

Because you didn't keep to your original thread, I have no idea what
answers you got that "were not helpful". Back up your data with
Knoppix, a Bart's PE, or ERD Commander emergency download (very
expensive). Delete all partitions and clean-install Windows. If you
still want to dual-boot with Linux, create partitions during XP's
installation and then install Linux later. Use Grub or LILO (depending
on your distro) for the boot loader.

http://www.knoppix.net
http://tinyurl.com/coyca - Winternals emergency downloads
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ (Bart's PE)

If you are unable to backup your files yourself - don't have the skill
or a second computer to make the rescue CD's - take the machine to a
professional computer repair shop (not your local version of
BigStoreUSA) and have them do it. This is not meant as an insult to
your mad skilz since I have no idea what they are.

Malke

 

[stas007]

the original thread was

http://groups.google.ca/group/micro...815/cae870ff09579ad4?hl=en#cae870ff09579ad4do
now?



restating once again, the question is :

how do i fix MBR, PBR or whatever it is that is preventing windows
bootup and access to my files.

 

[stas007]

the original thread was

http://groups.google.ca/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware/bro...

now?


restating the question yet another way :

It is NOT "How do I create a Linux partition"?
NOR "How do I install XP Home"?

it's :
how do i fix MBR, PBR or whatever it is that is preventing the windows
bootup, so that I can access my files that were on the Windows
partition.

 

[dg1261]

Wow, so many rookie mistakes here. Comments inline.

- I ran Partition Manager 7...
partiton 3) FAT - 3 GB (i think this was leftover data from
when I converted from FAT32 to NTFS)

Nope. That 3GB partition was your Dell recovery partition, which is(was)
used to restore your computer to "as-shipped" contents if/when XP gets
hopelessly bungled.

- tried resizing partition 2 and it failed...

I don't know "Partition Manager 7", but isn't it a Windows-based utility?
Most Windows-based partitioning utilities choke because of that special Dell
recovery partition. DOS and linux utilities don't seem to have that
problem.

so I deleted the contents of partition 3...

Okay, so now you destroyed the Dell recovery option. Good thing you got a
XP CD (which Dell no longer routinely includes with systems).

I then set partition 3, the one whose contents I had deleted,
to "Active"...

You didn't have an OS there, so what were you expecting to happen?

Didn't boot, message was "Bad PBR"...

Yes. That's exactly what you should have seen if no OS was on the third
partition. BTW, that particular error msg is specific to Dell's special
MBR--a non-standard MBR that is required in order to make the Dell recovery
partition work.

so from the recovery disk I ran FIXMBR...

Okay, now you've eliminated the Dell MBR, too. No big deal, since it's
irrelevant without the Dell recovery partition, which you nuked earlier.

- On reboot the message was "No bootable devices"...

Probably caused by the same condition that caused the prior "Bad PBR",
except you're now getting the non-Dell version of the error msg.

By the time you got here, I'm not sure what you had anymore, but I'm
guessing you might not have had any active partition. At any rate, all the
subsequent chkdsk'ing may have messed up everything so badly recovery will
be difficult.

Any suggestions as to what I should do now?

Follow Malke's advice.

 

[Rick]

Hello again,

I'm restating my problem because the answers I received were not
helpful. I have a Dell laptop with XP Home and while trying to create a
Linux partition the Master Boot Record among other things was damaged.
A lot of my files were not backed up so just reinstalling XP is not an
option. I had a corrupted MBR before on another computer because of a
virus and I was able to get everything fixed, so I'm hoping the same is
possible again this time. The following describes what happened.



- I ran Partition Manager 7. It Listed 3 partitions and one free space;

partiton 1) FAT - 50 MB (contains Dell Utilities)

partiton 2) NTFS - 57 GB (contains all my stuff)

partiton 3) FAT - 3 GB (i think this was leftover data from when I
converted from FAT32 to NTFS)

4) free space, about 50 MB



- tried resizing partition 2 and it failed, so I deleted the contents
of partition 3 figuring I would install Linux there. The contents were
deleted but reformating the partition for Linux failed.

- then i took a one day break, rebooted several times, browsed the net,
downloaded stuff, all was working fine but then it got ugly.

- Opened Windows Partition Manager (don't recall the exact name of the
utility) which listed the same details as Partition Manager i.e. 3
partitions and 1 free space. I then set partition 3, the one whose
contents I had deleted, to "Active".

- Rebooted immediately. Didn't boot, message was "Bad PBR"

- then I ran DISKPART from the XP recovery disk, and deleted partition
3.

- On reboot the message was still "Bad PBR" (i think), so from the
recovery disk I ran FIXMBR.

- On reboot the message was "No bootable devices"

- starting to sweat and panic, I ran DISKPART to create a 10MB
partition inside the free space, figuring the system needs to see 3
partitions

- On reboot the message was still "No bootable devices", so I ran
FIXMBR again which before running alerted "This computer appears have a
non-standard or invalid boot-record. FIXMBR may damage your partition
tables if you proceed". I proceeded anyway and FIXMBR said "writing new
MBR...\device\hardisk0\partition0"

- the contents of boot.ini at this time are:
[boot loader]
timeout-30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows="Microsoft XP Home"
/fast detect /Noexecute=optout

- on reboot i selected to boot from the Dell Recovery and Utilities
option ( partition 1 i assume).

- ran tests for the hard disk and it detected only some bad blocks that
were far away from the start : "block 116233432 - incorrectable data
error or media is write-protected, Continue or abort Test?"

- I didn't abort and continued testing and it uncovered several other
blocks in the same region. (I had run Windows DefragDisk the day before
and there were a few damaged blocks and I figured these were the once
being detected.) I'm surprised the test did't uncover the MBR damage.

- For each damaged block I clicked "Continue testing" and it tested
about ten (the last block number I jotted down was 116236402). Then the
testing froze, I waited 15 minutes and turned off the laptop..

- I rebooted but the recovery disk took about 4 times longer to startup
and displayed "
"The path specified is not valid".
"C:>\"

- getting much uglier, I ran CHKDSK, CHKDSK C:, CHKDSK /r, with the
result being in each case: "The specified drive is not valid or there
is no disk in the drive". Tried other things which gave these messages:


- on CD Windows : "path or file specified not valid"

- on reboot: "hard-disk read failure"

- on DISKPART : "setup cannot access this disk" - 57 GB, Disk 0, id 0,
Bus 0

- on FIXBOOT: "cannot find the system drive"

- on MAP: D: \device\cdrom0

- on D:\dir, it listed all the files on the recovery disk...

=============================

So that's what happened.
Any suggestions as to what I should do now?

You need to get a debug program from Dell. call or email Dell Support
and they will give it to you. It is very simple to use.