Dell Inspiron 1300 mbr help please.

AJP558

Hi All,

I got one of the Dell 1300 Inspiron laptops this week. One of the first things I did was to use PartitionMagic to create a 2nd partition for data - documents, etc.

I now need to use Dell's Symantec PC Restore facility (press Ctrl + F11 on boot) but unfortunately the re-partitioning work disables the restore facility because Dell uses a special mbr which is lost (overwritten)when partitions are changed. I did not know this until after I had done the changes.

I have tried using the drsfix from http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixes.htm but unfortunately it won't work for me after creating more than 1 extra partition.

As I still have the Dell hidden restore partitions would anyone in the know be able to email a copy of their Dell mbr please so that I can regain the use of the Ctrl+F11 restore facility?

I don't want to do a full re-install if possible as I'd like to get the system back to factory shipping state 1st please.

Cheers,
AJP

amosworks

If you're other partitions aren't in use yet and you don't mind a quick reinstall of your OS, you may find that deleting the other partitions and running that app you got to restore the MBR will work.

When it does, boot in to Knoppix and copy the MBR to a file on your first partition. Then reboot, go add your other partitions again and install it as you want. When done, boot in to Knoppix again (runs off CD and doesn't intrefere with your partitions) and copy the MBR back over from the file to the disk.

You can do it all yourself then in case nobody can send you this elusive MBR you need :-\

Good luck!

AJP558

Thanks for the advice amosworks,

Unfortunately I've already deleted all the other partitions and got the system looking like it was delivered. However, the drsfix still doesn't think the partition tables, etc are right enough for it to recreate the mbr and allow Dell's Symantec Restore facility to work again. Hence I am hoping somebody in the know with an unaltered Dell on the board will be able to email me the Dell mbr which for some reason is not available for download anywhere.

I am hoping to avoid doing a complete o/s re-install onto a wipd hard disk if I can.

Cheers,
AJP

amosworks

Eeek yeah I understand your problem. Although they MBR might not be available online, is information on that the partitions should look like available so you can compare it to what you've got?

AJP558

Yes, I have an analysis comparing what the partition table, etc now looks like compared to what it should look like, but at that low a level it all looks like Greek to me - tables of what I assume is hex. I can't believe that Dell wouldn't think many of their customers would want to crate separate partitions for documents, photos, music and so on. It seems crazy that doing so disables their recovery options permanently even if you leave the hidden recovery data alone.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there is someone out there with enough computer savy to extract the Dell mbr, but at the same time been happy enough to leave the Dell partitions as is.

Cheers,
AJP

amosworks

Maybe they allow you to create one primary partition and then logical partitions inside of this, rather than lots of primary partitions? I would expect that to be normal for a commercial product TBH