Bad MBR

jem16

My brother's PC was away being fixed as the main HD had gone. That has now been fixed and returned to him but the 2nd HD is acting strangely. It only shows one partition and not the full size of the HD.

He tells me that he has removed it from the PC and connected it up via an external caddy. Partition Magic reports a Bad MBR error although does at least list it as its full size.

I may be wrong but I thought the MBR was only something to be found on the main HD and not a 2nd HD? How would he go about fixing this?

IcyEars

The MBR is where, as well as the boot record (i.e. on the 1st hard disk) the partition table is held as well on a harddrive, so it is not neccesarilt unique to the first harddrive.

Is there not an option in Partition Magic to correct the error? It's been a while since I used that program but I thought you could correct the errors it finds.

If not, repartitioning the harddrive should also correct the error by overwriting the partition table (depending on what the error is of course).

fwor

If you have access to a Windows XP install CD, connect the suspect hard drive as the only drive present, boot from the XP CD, go to the recovery console and use the fixmbr command.

As described here:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairmbr.htm

jem16

IcyEars wrote: »

Is there not an option in Partition Magic to correct the error? It's been a while since I used that program but I thought you could correct the errors it finds.

I shall ask him.

If not, repartitioning the harddrive should also correct the error by overwriting the partition table (depending on what the error is of course).

OK I will suggest that to him.

jem16

fwor wrote: »

If you have access to a Windows XP install CD, connect the suspect hard drive as the only drive present, boot from the XP CD, go to the recovery console and use the fixmbr command.

As described here:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairmbr.htm

He is running Windows 2000 - it's an old system - so won't have an XP CD. I have one so could lend him it but he's not nearby.

fwor

jem16 wrote: »

He is running Windows 2000

Sorry - I was just guessing that he had XP. I should have said that any Windows installation CD since NT4 will have fixmbr available from the recovery console. So if he has his Win2k discs he should be ok.

jem16

So what should happen after he has run this command?

Conor_3

It should work OK. There are two copies of the Master Boot Record and FixMBR will have a look at them and repair the original or replace it with the backup.