MBR problem...

[RJK]

PC is a Dell "VOSTRO" ...Intel based E4500 (2.2ghz) ...Vista Home Premium

Just before Christmas it wouldn't boot up i.e. hanging on a black screen
with "Boot from CD" upper left, so ran Spinrite 6 hd "scan for surface
defects" on the main/boot partition C: which, (somehow), fixed it.

Yesterday the PC started doing it again (blk scrn / "Boot fromCD"),

...booted from Spinrite 6 cd, and scanned for surface defects, this time on
all partitions - which again has fixed the problem but, for how long I am
now wondering

Question is, where is the MBR located / can it be moved to somehwere else on
the hd platter, or is maybe the boot sector area of the hd going bad ?

I've been reading up on Viste i.e. I see that Vista does not have a boot.ini
like XP and that there is a BootMGR in a "boot" directory etc. :-(

....any tips GLADLY appreciated.

TIA

regards, Richard

( sorry, ...cross posted to XP cause that's really all I know about, and
there's bound to XP guru's in here that are getting to grips with Vista ! )

 

[SC Tom]

PC is a Dell "VOSTRO" ...Intel based E4500 (2.2ghz) ...Vista Home Premium

Just before Christmas it wouldn't boot up i.e. hanging on a black screen
with "Boot from CD" upper left, so ran Spinrite 6 hd "scan for surface
defects" on the main/boot partition C: which, (somehow), fixed it.

Yesterday the PC started doing it again (blk scrn / "Boot fromCD"),

..booted from Spinrite 6 cd, and scanned for surface defects, this time on
all partitions - which again has fixed the problem but, for how long I am
now wondering

Question is, where is the MBR located / can it be moved to somehwere else
on the hd platter, or is maybe the boot sector area of the hd going bad ?

I've been reading up on Viste i.e. I see that Vista does not have a
boot.ini like XP and that there is a BootMGR in a "boot" directory etc.
:-(

...any tips GLADLY appreciated.

TIA

regards, Richard

( sorry, ...cross posted to XP cause that's really all I know about, and
there's bound to XP guru's in here that are getting to grips with Vista
! )

I'd be looking for a replacement HDD if I were you before this one crashes
completely.

SC Tom

 

[RJK]

I'd be looking for a replacement HDD if I were you before this one crashes
completely.

SC Tom

Thanks for your response,

From the outset with this PC, that's been my feeling as well - i.e. failing
hard disk !
....seeing that my old copy of Norton Ghost 9.0 is incompatible with Vista,
any ideas on how best to clone this Dell Samsung hd onto a new one i.e. if I
bought a Seagate - is there a clone utility I could download from Seagate -
i.e. I'm sure I've seen mention of something like that in these MS NG's ?

....then there is the Dell hd configuration (restore partition etc.) to
consider / and replicate !

....another consideration I've just realised is that this Dell is under
Warranty, and due to confidentiality issues, I suspect that the owner would
not be happy with a Dell technician arriving and replacing the hd, and
taking away the old one.

regards, Richard

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below.


*** You would have to shrink your system partition so that the
*** bad area is "fenced off".

Thanks for your response,

From the outset with this PC, that's been my feeling as well - i.e.
failing hard disk !
...seeing that my old copy of Norton Ghost 9.0 is incompatible with Vista,
any ideas on how best to clone this Dell Samsung hd onto a new one i.e. if
I bought a Seagate - is there a clone utility I could download from
Seagate - i.e. I'm sure I've seen mention of something like that in these
MS NG's ?

*** Most if not all hard disk manufacturers have a free cloning
*** utility on their web site.

...then there is the Dell hd configuration (restore partition etc.) to
consider / and replicate !

...another consideration I've just realised is that this Dell is under
Warranty, and due to confidentiality issues, I suspect that the owner
would not be happy with a Dell technician arriving and replacing the hd,
and taking away the old one.

*** If the machine is under warranty then Dell will replace the
*** disk. Make sure to back up all files (including your EMail
*** files!) beforehand, and to test the backups for useability.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Richard.

Question is, where is the MBR located / can it be moved to somehwere else
on the hd platter, or is maybe the boot sector area of the hd going bad ?

The MBR is the Master Boot Record. It is the very first physical sector on
the physical hard drive. As the name suggests, it is where the BIOS ROM
starts to boot the computer. If that's bad, the computer can't boot from
this drive.

I've been reading up on Viste i.e. I see that Vista does not have a
boot.ini like XP and that there is a BootMGR in a "boot" directory etc.
:-(

Correct. But if the MBR is bad, the boot process won't get far enough to
see either Vista's BootMGR or Vista's NTLDR and Boot.ini. This is not an
operating system problem; it's a hardware problem.

The MBR is not a file, so it can't be handled by normal programs or
utilities.

As the others said, replace that drive - under warranty if possible, but
replace it ASAP. But first, rescue your data. Don't worry about the OS or
applications; those can be replaced. Just get your data, which doesn't
exist anywhere else in the world.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 7000

 

[semoi]

Disc cloning software is not completely reliable, just as disc back-up
software is not completely reliable. Both types of software all too
frequently will create multi-gb computer hash.
First back up your data from your hard drive: documents, images, etc. onto
CD or DVD and make sure the data is readable. Copy the files, do not use the
back-up utility.
If you have anything like Photoshop installed deactivate it so you don't
have problems reinstalling--Adobe is more vicious than Microsoft about
activation.
Hard drives come with utilities to create clones but not all come with Vista
compatible software, at least that was my recent experience with Western
Digital. Seagate is better in this regard. If you get your new hard drive
from Dell, which may be a refurbished drive, you may be on your own with
regard to cloning software.
The problem may not be your hard drive however. You can download several
software packages to check the hard drive. When a hard drive is failing it
is not usually the MBR alone that is affected. Most commonly users
experience increasingly frequent lock ups, BSODs, difficulty booting and may
hear the "click of death."
If you are having frequent problems with your MBR some piece of malware may
be rewriting it. If that is the case you need to get every kind of scanning
software you are able to but in the end usually only reformatting and
reinstalling gets rid of it.

 

[RJK]

See below.



*** You would have to shrink your system partition so that the
*** bad area is "fenced off".


*** Most if not all hard disk manufacturers have a free cloning
*** utility on their web site.


*** If the machine is under warranty then Dell will replace the
*** disk. Make sure to back up all files (including your EMail
*** files!) beforehand, and to test the backups for useability.

Many thanks for your responses,
....just spoke to the owner and was informed that the Warranty expired on the
11th, (today is the 13th!), so...
....whilst it's running okay, am currently Norton Ghost 14.0 'ing, its'
drives C: and D: out to my external USB hd... "31 minutes remaining" !
...previously ran Vista's "backup my files / wizard" ...or whatever it was
called - out to my external USB hd !
after that ...
...strongly tempted to just buy a Seagate 500gb drive and use Ghost 14.0's
"copy drive" and clone the drive whilst it's still working okay but, not
compeltely sure how that will impact on Dells recovery partition - 10gb
drive D:\ and whether a different brand of hd and hex. ID would upset it !
i.e. can't find a Samsung Spinrite HD501LJ 500gb in stock anywhere.

regards, Richard

 

[RJK]

....A quick thanks to all who replied.

Earlier today I installed Norton Ghost 14.0 and backed up its' drives C:\
and D:\ out to my USB hd (in 1gb chunks) and then burnt those to DVD,
and will hand those over tomorrow along with a Ghost recovery cd, then it's
down to the owner to thrash out a solution with Dell, who I suspect will not
be willing to help just days after that warranty expired but, you never
know.

btw it seemed to have been "non-destructive?" restored before it came to me
yesterday, perhaps by the owner, cause it spent AGES doing a Vista SP1
update,
I was quite shocked by the overall poor performance on it, at least in terms
of the time it took to complete the update/s, and it seemed to want to spend
ages on installing updates on both startup and shut down, goodness know how
many times ! I've started and stopped it quite a few times today, and it's
still being well behaved.

.....My antique D935, driving XP Home, seems much more pleasant and
responsive than that E4550 driving Vista Home Premium !!

....again, thanks all

regards, Richard

 

[Lil' Dave]

PC is a Dell "VOSTRO" ...Intel based E4500 (2.2ghz) ...Vista Home Premium

Just before Christmas it wouldn't boot up i.e. hanging on a black screen
with "Boot from CD" upper left, so ran Spinrite 6 hd "scan for surface
defects" on the main/boot partition C: which, (somehow), fixed it.

Yesterday the PC started doing it again (blk scrn / "Boot fromCD"),

..booted from Spinrite 6 cd, and scanned for surface defects, this time on
all partitions - which again has fixed the problem but, for how long I am
now wondering

Question is, where is the MBR located / can it be moved to somehwere else
on the hd platter, or is maybe the boot sector area of the hd going bad ?

I've been reading up on Viste i.e. I see that Vista does not have a
boot.ini like XP and that there is a BootMGR in a "boot" directory etc.
:-(

...any tips GLADLY appreciated.

TIA

regards, Richard

( sorry, ...cross posted to XP cause that's really all I know about, and
there's bound to XP guru's in here that are getting to grips with Vista
! )

To date, the mbr always resides in the first sector of the hard drive. The
partition boot record, pbr, is integral to the partition, and points at the
first boot file of the operating system. If you're going into the file
system, and booting, you're referring to the pbr. MBR and PBR are two
different animals.

The symptoms that I see you describe is an iffy area on the hard drive that
tend to only hold data temporarily at best. This may or may not get worse
as time goes on. Writing zeroes to a hard drive with HD manufacturer's
software will remap out any bad areas for subsequent non-use. If
significant, will render the hard drive useless by default. So don't run
same until you've made a copy.
--
Dave

CDOs are how we got here.
A modified version, new taxes in the future, is how Congress will get us
out?