[Bilou_Gateux]

manofdos, on Jan 21 2005, 09:24 AM, said:

Boot from a 98 boot disk or the windows 98 cd and run fdisk /mbr. Way easier than learning new utils.

Only your 4th post and very valuable input. I will keep your awesome method with my floppyless and CDless notebook.
RIS + WinPE or PXELinux is my only way to install / repair / fix problems on my notebook
@jaclaz
Thanks !

[jaclaz]

Quote

Boot from a 98 boot disk or the windows 98 cd and run fdisk /mbr. Way easier than learning new utils.

By the way, the Windows 98 fdisk /mbr command will write, guess what, a Win98 MBR, NOT a NT/Win2k/XP/2003 one.

The only ways to write a new NT/Win2k/XP/2003 MBR I know of, apart the utility from Kaares here are:
1) Microsoft's FixMBR (that will run in the Recovery Console only)
2) Ranish partition manager (that will work from DOS only) which writes a standard IPL code, not the win2k one

You can extract the MBR IPL code from files on your Win2k/XP and write it manually with an Hex/disk editor:
http://therdcom.com/...br/Win2kmbr.htm

The very good utility MBRwizard by Roger Layton can read (and store) MBR data, then can write it from the stored file, but it DOES NOT create it as the above two do.
To edit/replace the BOOT RECORD (not the MBR) there is this fine Bootpart by Gilles Vollant (that will have direct disk access under DOS only), that works on FAT volumes.


A further step could be to make an unified GUI for the three of them:
Bootpart
MBRfix
MBRwizard
and for some other related utility, so that you have a complete repair solution.

Every suggestion is welcome.

jaclaz

[Bilou_Gateux]

@jaclaz

I really like all the answers you give to us. There are well documented and you don't forget to add link for valuable infos.

Great !

[dman]

thank you kaares for mbrfix. great tool. I made small launcher-gui with vb6 for BartPE.
see next post

[Bilou_Gateux]

@dman

What is the
Run-time error '380':
invalid property value

I would like to try your GUI under Windows 2000.
comdlg32.ocx is in my %systemroot%\system32 dir and is registered.

[sixpack]

Run-time error '53'

[dman]

The version of vmbrfix.exe and bat file I posted last night has hard coded paths specific for BartPE. I changed to relative pathing so you should be able to run from anywhere now (must be in path with no long directory names, though), and "should" work under win2k. please let me know.

dman

reposted 2-02 3:15pm - several small changes
reposted 2-02 6:17pm - added "about" box
reposted 2-03 9:25am - added error handler

Attached File(s)

•  vMbrFix.zip (110.94K)
  Number of downloads: 405

[sixpack]

sorry still Run-time error '53'

[dman]

that is "file not found" error. when does it occur? what platform are you running? is mbrfix.exe in the dir? any details will help.
Also, put it in a path that has no long directory names (like not on the desktop). shellexecute may have trouble with dir names longer than 8 chars.

[sixpack]

dman, on Feb 2 2005, 07:01 PM, said:

that is "file not found" error. when does it occur? what platform are you running? is mbrfix.exe in the dir? any details will help.

it's on xp pro and the mbrfix.exe file is in the directory

[dman]

see edited post above. must not be in dir path with long names

[sixpack]

dman, on Feb 2 2005, 07:08 PM, said:

see edited post above. must not be in dir path with long names

yup working now
thanks for the tool

[dman]

My pleasure!

[kaares]

I just uploaded a new version of MbrFix. See first page of this thread.
You may also download the utility from this address:

http://www.sysint.no...ting/MbrFix.zip

This post has been edited by kaares: 09 September 2005 - 01:44 AM

[jaclaz]

Thanks again kaares, nice job.

Just for quick reference:

Quote

    MbrFix /drive <num> driveinfo              Display drive information
    MbrFix /drive <num> drivesize              Returns drive size in MB as return value
    MbrFix /drive <num> listpartitions        Display partition information
    MbrFix /drive <num> savembr <file>        Save MBR and partitions to file
    MbrFix /drive <num> restorembr <file>      Restore MBR and partitions from file
    MbrFix /drive <num> fixmbr                Update MBR code to W2K/XP/2003
    MbrFix /drive <num> clean                  Delete partitions in MBR
    MbrFix /drive <num> readsignature {/byte}  Read disk signature from MBR
    MbrFix /drive <num> writesignature hex    Write disk signature from MBR
    MbrFix /drive <num> generatesignature      Generate disk signature in MBR
    MbrFix /drive <num> readstate              Read state from byte 0x1b0 in MBR
    MbrFix /drive <num> writestate <state>    Write state to byte 0x1b0 in MBR
    MbrFix volumeinformation driveletter      Get volume information for partition

Items in RED are the new commands.

Please, do not think I am "picky", but maybe :

Quote

MbrFix /drive <num> writesignature hex    Write disk signature from MBR

should really be:

Quote

MbrFix /drive <num> writesignature hex    Write disk signature to MBR

jaclaz

[staples]

using the fixmbr utility posted (that was updated september 2005) would the
command "MbrFix /drive 0 fixmbr /yes" be equilvant to the dos command "Fdisk /mbr"?

[jaclaz]

Exactly, by using the /YES switch the FDISK /MBR is replicated.

The only difference is that the MBR code on win9x/ME (FDISK) system is slightly different from the Win2k/XP/2003 (MBRFIX) one.

jaclaz

[jaclaz]

Ok, here (attached) is the updated Pseudo-GUI.

You will need, apart from the files in the attachment, the program from Kaare:

http://www.sysint.no...ting/MbrFix.zip

And the Wizard's Apprentice WIZAPP.EXE:
http://wizapp.sourceforge.net/

Copy all files to the same directory, rename mbrfix.txt to mbrfix.cmd and double click on it.

A mirror of my pseudo-GUI file is here:
http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...X/mbrfix0.2.zip

Let me know if you find any bugs/problems.

jaclaz

Attached File(s)

•  mbrfix0.2.zip (6.95K)
  Number of downloads: 209

[el_rob3]

hi guys,

i have prob with my WD Caviar 80G.B H.D.D when try to test it with some pprograms i got message that
it is no MBR or damage in MBR can me copy MBR from onther one ?


i want to safe my data on this hdd


Plz help???

[jaclaz]

Quote

it is no MBR or damage in MBR can me copy MBR from onther one ?

No, you CANNOT copy an MBR from another disk.

The MBR is made in TWO parts, first one is "STATIC" meaning that is common code to all MBR's written from a given Operating System, second one is "DYNAMIC" meaning that has data (Partition Tables and, in the case of win2k/XP/2003, a "signature") that ONLY belongs to THAT HD/System.

MBRFix replaces the STATIC data with standard one, and can change the signature.
NO changes are made to the Partition Table.

So if your Partition Table is good but the STATIC part is not, MBRFIX is the tool for you.
If your MBR is ok but the Partition Table is not, you will need a tool like TESTDISK:
http://www.cgsecurit...g/testdisk.html
or a Hex/Disk editor, a lot of patience AND some good knowledge of the inner workings of Partition Tables to correct the problem.
A handy utility to change PT easily - but you still have to KNOW what you are doing - is Beeblebrox:
http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/
http://students.cs.b...bbdownload.html

jaclaz