WinXP install ruins two HDs - Help!

[BobV]

I think I probably know the outcome of the bottom line of what I'm asking,
but what the heck...I'll try anyway. Had something "really" strange happen,
at least to my personal understanding. It all started about a week
ago....some things weren't going right on my system, so I figured "well, I
have quite a lot of junk on the system at this point--I'll just reinstall
the system from scratch". Done it plenty of times before--shouldn't be a
problem. First, I had three 400gb hard drives on my system, all SATA--the
boot drive had the OS, my data files, program installation files, etc.,
etc., each on a separate partition. Second and third just had a lot of
video files on it. Ok, so.....I stick my WinXP disk in the DVD drive and
reboot; it boots to the CD and starts inspecting the system and loading
install files....gets to the screen where I'm supposed to select a partition
to install it on. Ok, they don't look right; but it does show C, D, and
E.....so I pick C and move forward. It seems to do okay, and after
everything installs it reboots and "normally" loads WinXP and you begin
setting it up. Instead, it starts the process all over again. This time,
when I select C, it goes to a next screen and tells me there is no
compatible WinXP partition and gives me the option of deleting the partition
and re-creating it, so I did that. From there it pretty much just did that
time after time. Rebooted again, and tried a different partition, which I
realize now must actually have been another physical drive....because what I
basically have now is two HDs that are totally useless. Fortunately, I had
backups of my critical data; but lost a "bunch" of video that I would rather
not have....most not anything I can't get again (recorded movies off the TV,
etc.), except for a few are really quite unfortunate. The thing I guess I
can't understand is exactly what happened from what should have been a
simple system reinstallation. Anyone heard of something like this before?
I mean these two drives are absolutely worthless at this point.....I cannot
even reformat them, wipe out the data, and start over with empty drives.
Even in Partition Magic, when I attempt to format them, I get the error
message "BAD MBR". Is there any way to get around this boot record error
and at least "use" the drives again? Any info would help. Some big lessons
learned this time--for starters, unplug everything else before starting next
time. I've bought another main drive in the meantime and have started
reinstalling my system, and things are going fine, and as I would have
expected them to go the first time; but I sure would like to know what
happened before.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Ted Zieglar]

I've said this many times before, but it bears repeating: Many people
think 'my computer seems pretty messed up...guess I'll just reinstall
Windows.' That way of thinking is wrong.

To begin with, reinstalling Windows won't make a bit of difference if
you have a hardware problem, a problem with software other than Windows,
malware or a problem with the logical structure of your hard disk.
Reinstalling Windows is only useful in situations where critical Windows
files are missing or damaged. If this is not, in fact, the problem
reinstalling Windows is of no value. And, depending on what the real
problem is, reinstalling Windows can make things much worse.

You haven't told us anything that might help to identify the underlying
problem(s) you were facing, other than "some things weren't going right
on my system".

Also: Reinstalling and installing from scratch are two different things.
Installing from scratch means erasing your hard disk and starting over.
You have not done this.

You have told us that you are receiving a message to the effect that
your Master Boot Record is corrupted. There is usually no recovery from
this, although someone with the right tools and the training to use them
might...might...be able to repair the damage. In most cases you have to
erase your hard disk.

It's rare for a master boot record to become corrupted. When that does
happen it's usually due to malware or an inexperienced user who is
trying to use partitioning tools.

The fact that you have reinstalled Windows "plenty of times before"
should, quite frankly, be a red flag to you. Windows XP is inherently
stable and in the hands of a knowledgeable user it should not need
reinstalling at all. This is a sign that you might want to take a hard
look at how you are using your computer.

So in your case I would say 1) Ask a professional technician with
experience in fixing boot records to help you out, and 2) Be prepared to
erase your hard disk and reinstall everything.

 

[GTS]

I couldn't agree more with Ted's excellent post. I suggest you get
qualified help. Although you give no useful information whatsoever, I will
add one thought - it sounds very possible that you have a failing hard drive
(particularly since Partition Magic also reports the bad MBR). Before doing
anything else, if you want to pursue this yourself, boot to Recovery Console
and run chkdsk /r and find out if the disk is usable.

 

[BobV]

Ted,

Points noted, however, I did not mean to imply that I'm constantly
reinstalling Windows every time I encounter the slightest problem. Just
that over the years, with the number of computers I have in the house, that
I have installed one version or another numerous times. Do I reinstall it
more than is necessary--well, probably, so again points noted and taken for
future reference. On this particular box that I built about a year ago now,
I have never actually reinstalled the system. I only meant to imply that
with the number of times "over the years" that I "have" installed Windows I
have never really encountered before what I experienced this time. Never
really completely ruined physical drives before. I do also note that you
say corrupting the master boot record is rare, and that it's usually not
recoverable. Guess that's all I need to know--I've done the near
impossible, and I'm screwed.

Ok, so not that it matters anymore, but I attempted to reinstall, not wipe
the entire HD and install everything again. I did not attempt to partition
the drive--it was already partitioned. It was just a matter of rebooting
with the WinXP disk and going through the steps to reformat the C: drive and
then install XP on it. Since something went very wrong somewhere I was just
attempting to ascertain what or how it might have happened. Basically, you
have as much information as I have to share--one minute the hard drives were
fine, and after going through the Windows install procedure, they weren't.

Thanks anyway.....at least, as your signature says, I did have a backup of
my most critical data. While I'm obviously certainly not at your level of
expertise, I'm also not exactly the completely unknowledgable buffoon you
make me out to be.

Thanks again,
Bob

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Sincere apologies if I gave the impression that I thought you were a
buffoon. That was not at all my intent. Much of whatever expertise I may
have comes from having made mistakes myself, including some clearly in
the buffoon category. I'm certain that my earlier exploits are legends
in the hallways of Dell technical support.

One way that you can avoid reinstalling Windows is to backup your system
partition. A more accurate term is to "image" your system partition.
Disk imaging software makes an exact copy of a partition or an entire
disk. The image of a system partition includes the master boot record,
so if MBR corruption is your only problem you can restore the MBR in a
minute and be back in business, provided the disk is not physically
damaged (which I have done, by the way.)

Disk imaging software is not simple to learn but I guarantee it will be
one of the best investments of your time that you can make in a
computer. Popular programs include Acronis True Image and Symantec
Norton Ghost.

 

[BobV]

Thanks Ted,

I guess maybe I'm a little oversensitive at this point. I just can't figure
out how I did what I did, and I've explained things in detail to the IT guys
at work, and they tell me as well they have never heard anything like it.
Actually, I do use Acronis as my backup program. I restored both my Data
and Programs partitions with it onto my new HD after I installed XP on it,
but after finally accepting my fate on the other drives didn't think
anything would work. I haven't used Acronis for very long, but I guess I
would just create a boot disk (or maybe the Acronis CD itself is bootable)
and then try to restore the boot partition from there. I'll look at the
helpfile and give it a shot--at least maybe I can reuse the drives that way.
I know the data is lost, but I hate to lose two 400gb drives completely when
they were fine before the reinstall.

Thank-you again.....I'll try to be more patient about reinstalling to fix
things next time; although I can tell you a lot of the little irritating
things that were happening have been resolved by the reinstall. A couple
are: every time I stuck a blank DVD in my writer, the system would reboot
as soon as I closed the door. It even got to the point where it would even
reboot when I clicked a button to go from screen to screen in my DVD
creation software program--Movie Factory. Another one was in Outlook
Express which I use for newsgroup reading and posting only. If I wanted to
forward a posting to an Outlook email addressee, it simply wouldn't do it.
It would prompt me for which Outlook profile I wanted to use, but then when
I selected it, it would do nothing. Also in IE, when I would click on a
"Mailto" link, even though I had Outlook specified as my mail program, it
would open up Outlook Express. Just a bunch of things like this, too many
to name....so I just got to the point where I said what the heck, maybe if I
just redo everything I can get it installed properly. Working better now,
but at a cost of two HDs.

Anyway, once again, thank-you for your last post. I feel better, and have
some hope that all is not lost.
Bob

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Glad I could help.

 

[Andy]

Have you tried zero-filling the two HDs?

I think I probably know the outcome of the bottom line of what I'm asking,
but what the heck...I'll try anyway. Had something "really" strange happen,
at least to my personal understanding. It all started about a week
ago....some things weren't going right on my system, so I figured "well, I
have quite a lot of junk on the system at this point--I'll just reinstall
the system from scratch". Done it plenty of times before--shouldn't be a
problem. First, I had three 400gb hard drives on my system, all SATA--the
boot drive had the OS, my data files, program installation files, etc.,
etc., each on a separate partition. Second and third just had a lot of
video files on it. Ok, so.....I stick my WinXP disk in the DVD drive and
reboot; it boots to the CD and starts inspecting the system and loading
install files....gets to the screen where I'm supposed to select a partition
to install it on. Ok, they don't look right; but it does show C, D, and
E.....so I pick C and move forward. It seems to do okay, and after
everything installs it reboots and "normally" loads WinXP and you begin
setting it up. Instead, it starts the process all over again. This time,
when I select C, it goes to a next screen and tells me there is no
compatible WinXP partition and gives me the option of deleting the partition
and re-creating it, so I did that. From there it pretty much just did that
time after time. Rebooted again, and tried a different partition, which I
realize now must actually have been another physical drive....because what I
basically have now is two HDs that are totally useless. Fortunately, I had
backups of my critical data; but lost a "bunch" of video that I would rather
not have....most not anything I can't get again (recorded movies off the TV,
etc.), except for a few are really quite unfortunate. The thing I guess I
can't understand is exactly what happened from what should have been a
simple system reinstallation. Anyone heard of something like this before?
I mean these two drives are absolutely worthless at this point.....I cannot
even reformat them, wipe out the data, and start over with empty drives.
Even in Partition Magic, when I attempt to format them, I get the error
message "BAD MBR". Is there any way to get around this boot record error
and at least "use" the drives again? Any info would help. Some big lessons
learned this time--for starters, unplug everything else before starting next
time. I've bought another main drive in the meantime and have started
reinstalling my system, and things are going fine, and as I would have
expected them to go the first time; but I sure would like to know what
happened before.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[DanS]

I guess maybe I'm a little oversensitive at this point. I just can't
figure out how I did what I did, and I've explained things in detail
to the IT guys at work, and they tell me as well they have never heard
anything like it.

I had an oddball thing happen to me. And worst of all, it was while I was
working on the wife's computer, which obviously is WAAAYYY worse than
screwing up my own computer.

Anyway, the PC had 2 physical drives in it, C & D (I don't remember if
they were on the same IDE channel or not). I was going to do a clean
install of XP on it for her. It was only a 15 gig drive for the system
drive and another 15 gig for data. Since it was a smaller drive, I was
ging to use FAT32 instead of NTFS.

I booted from a Win98 boot disk, then (absolutely) typed format c:
(positively), it went along formatting, and when done, I put the XP CD in
and rebooted. When the install started, it said there was a version of XP
on the drive, what do you want to do with it ?

WHAT !?!?!?!?!?

Turns out, something went awry with the previous boot from the Win98 CD,
and the drive letters were swapped. Needless to say, she was p*ssed !!! I
spent the next 6 hours recovering data from the newly formatted drive.

I don't know how it happened, or why, but am ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY SURE
that I typed format c: and not format d:.

So now, whenever an install is done, I make sure that the only HD in the
machine is the main system drive, and nothing else.

Which is a good tip anyway, and recommended here quite often. One HD, KB,
mouse, and display adapter for install, then add devices after eveything
works up to that point.

Regards,

DanS