Recovery Console help please

[Paul Simon]

Something has bitten my hard drive for the second time in 8 months. It
wipes out the Master Boot Record. The last time I copied everything
over to a new hard drive. This time I wanted to try to fix the MBR.

I was going to use the Recovery Console and use the FIXMBR command.

When I use the MAP command, it says C:NTFS 152626MB
\Device\Harddisk1\Partition1.

Does indicate that there is only 1 partition, or that it is listing
only one of the partitions? As far as I know, there is only one
partition. How can I prove it without having a working system?

When I start the FIXMBR command, it says that "there is a non-standard
or invalid master boot record". Is that only because the MBR is broken
or are there other reasons?

My fear of using FIXMBR is the warning that it could damage the
partition table and destroy all data on the drive.

All help greatly appreciated!

---Paul

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

From my experience with this, if you are not having problems accessing
your drives, you should not continue. Writing a new master boot record
to your system partition could damage your partition tables and cause
your partitions to become inaccessible.

Yes, Partition1 indicates that you have only 1 partition.

 

[Paul Simon]

I AM having problems with the PC. That is the reason I am venturing
down this road.

When I start my PC all I get after the POST is a "Y", a theta, a "Y"
and another theta. This is an indication of a missing MBR. Now I have
to try to recreate it. That is why I have an interest in FIXMBR.

Any thoughts about it wold be appreciated....

Thanks! Paul

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Paul, I can only tell you want I know. Over the past 6 years, I have
keep a Tech Journal of issues that I have ran into. I have come across
your issue only 3 times. This is what I did to resolve the issue:

Boot into Recovery Console
Performed chkdsk /p
Fixmbr
Fixboot c:
Reboot

Twice this has worked without any type of data loss and future boot
issues. The other time the drive had to be completely reformatted and
repartitioned. However, 3 days later this drive failed completely. So I
chalked it up to a faulty drive.

Now I am not sure if that helps, but please take the information,
research it, and make an informed decision.

--
Michael D. Alligood,
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Paul Simon]

Michael...

Thank you so much for your reply. Like I said, this is the second time
in about 8 months on 2 different drives in the same computer! I am
wondering if it is a virus of some kind... I had ran a scan but nothing
was found. This time it died on 11/1. Seems like a suspicious date, but
then I could just be looking for something to blame <G>. (By the way,
for the first drive that went, Seagate has offered to replace the
drive! I haven't sent it in yet, but I will).

Hopefully tomorrow, I'll get brave enough and try it out.

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Let me know what happens... Good Luck.

--
Michael D. Alligood,
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Paul Simon]

I finally got to run FIXMBR within the Recovery Console.

When I ran it, it said it did it's job. Looked good!

Rebooted the box, and still no change! The PC still can't find a MBR!

What could that possibly mean?