lost master boot record

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Hawaiiantim

I lost my master boot record but think I can find it with
a ntfs file reader, could anyone tell me what the name of
that file is or what to look for so I can copy to another
drive to put it back to the beginning of the original
drive; Thanks
 
Hawaiiantim said:
I lost my master boot record but think I can find it with
a ntfs file reader, could anyone tell me what the name of
that file is or what to look for so I can copy to another
drive to put it back to the beginning of the original
drive; Thanks
Click to expand...

The Master Boot Record (MBR) is not a file; it is an area
at the beginning of the hard disk that controls the boot
process. What makes you think you've lost it?

There are several processes to restore the MBR:
- Boot into the Command Console, then run the
command fixmbr
- Boot the PC with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdiskcom),
then run the command fdisk /mbr
This works on FAT and on NTFS partitions.
 
When using Partition Magic to create a new fat32 Partition
in my usb external drive X: (which is ntfs) it locked up.
I let it run overnight to see if it would fix itself but
finaly had to cancel the operation. P.M. shows critical
error #46 seek error, also error #7 user canceled
operation pop-up. Windows sees the drive on my computer as
raw. Command prompt will not do chkdsk or scandisk on that
drive,Active unerase.exe from "Active" reads the files in
dos just fine. I have tried fixmbr from xp cd recovery dos
prompt, Also from windows command prompt.It will do
nothing and PM software will not read it yet the X: drive
shows up un My computer. Scandisk and chkdsk cannot read
the files either. I could probably copy to another
location and save data but have not tried yet. It seems
that my problem is the MBR Partition Table not in
sequential order. can any one tell me a way to fix, and if
I format the drive Will active unerase still be able to
read? These are all fairly new, but understandable
procedures for me. Thanks;
1.
This usb drive has all my back up, of which about 98% of
that is backed up on my girlfriends dell (all she does is
search web & email), A great storage locker! Any way I
guess I'm trying to learn somthing, which I have. I think
I can copy these recent backups to another file using the
Active uneraser from:
http://www.uneraser.com/download.htm Which sees the files
and I belive will see them even if I format the drive but
not write anything to it. I would like to know as much as
possible before I get off the web and try. Now I have one
back up win xp clone partition 10Gg of what I call " My
perfect hard drive" which is untouched and ok my usb (X:)
27gb drive has all back up and storage I was trying to
create a fat partition 3gb for tranfering stuff to a win
98 comp Total 40gb. ..... Mahalo and Aloha!
 
Pegasus, is it really possible to use fdisk /mbr on a NTFS formatted
harddrive? I didn't think Win98 boot disk had the ability to see, much
less read or write to, a NTFS formatted harddrive. Are you using
something else with the Win98 Boot disk?
 
The MBR is independent of the file system. It does not use
FAT or NTFS - it's just a table of values. Just for fun I tried
it a moment ago on an disk with only one NTFS partition.
It worked.
 
Cool, I knew the MBR is seperate from the filing system, I just didn't
think that the Win98 bootdisk would actually recognize the drive. I
guess maybe it recognizes the drive, but then gives the error: Cannot
read disk, retry, ignore, cancel, etc. when you try to access it.
 
Nathan:
When you think about it, you will go "dooohhh" --
After booting to a DOS prompt from a Win98 bootdisk, you can fun "FDISK"
from the floppy, which will recognize NTFS as a "non- DOS partition" and
will offer you the option of deleting that "non-DOS partition".
So DOS does "see" an NTFS partition, it just has no idea what kind of
partition it is seeing. Sort of like a jet-fighter pilot reporting a UFO --
the pilot knows that an object is flying , but has no idea what kind of
object is flying . Unlike the DOS FKISK, however, the pilot does not offer
the option of deleting the unknown object.

steve
 
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