[Eyedoctor2]

Jaclaz,

I have seen from you posts on various forums that you are obviously an MBR wiz and I am having a problem.

I followed your instructions in this thread and this is what is reported:

Drive 1
Disk size = 131069 (MB)
Cylinders = 16709
Tracks per cylinder = 255
Sectors per track = 63
Bytes per sector = 512
Disk size = 137436203520 (Bytes) = 127 (GB)
# Boot Size (MB) Type
1 Yes 190779 7 NTFS or HPFS
2 0 0 None
3 0 0 None
4 0 0 None

My system has two hard drives. For some reason drive 0 is my secondary (non boot) drive. It is a sata 320 gb drive connected to the mainboard.

My drive 1 as seen above is my boot drive. It is a 200 gb ide attached to a western digital controller card.

When the machine boots up the controller card reports 186 gb. Windows recognizes all 186 gb as well. But Norton Ghost says Cannot enable the job because it contains invalid drives. Norton Partition Magic reports Error #109: Partition ends after end of disk.
ucEndCylinder (24320) must be less than 16709.

I looked up the error on Symantec support and they say it's either bios (seems to report 186 gb), controller card (no problem in past) or the MBR.

I have thought of running fixmbr but am reluctant to do so.

I tried to backup the mbr using your program. I tried to attach it to this post but was unable (error not permitted to upload a file with that extension).

I also tried to use TESTDISK as I saw that you recommended that to someone on another post.

It reports 137GB/ 127GiB CHS 16709 255 63. "The hard disk seems too small! Check the hard disk size" .

I tried to change the geometry but received an error message.

Can you please help me?

This post has been edited by Eyedoctor2: 19 November 2006 - 12:43 PM

[jaclaz]

@Eyedoctor2

From what you report, it appears that you have somehow corrupted records, I have seen this hapen when a tool like Partition Magic or similar has been used and was interrupted, but it could be caused by almost anything.

It is possible that the drive was originally formatted under another operatig system or using a third party tool with full LBA support.

Let see things one by one.

As I see it, the fact that drive 0 is the one attached to mainboard, even if without active partition on it, is normal, I think that Physical drives enumeration is dependant on hardware connections, so I would not be preoccupied by that, it should be quite normal that the BIOS detects drives attached to mainboard BEFORE those attached to expansion cards.

From what you say, the data reported by Disk driver is CHS 16709x255x63, which would mean
16709x255x63x512=137,436,203,520 bytes

In a perfect word, with a NTFS primary partition spanning over the entire disk, you should have, as seen in beeblebrox (don't be afraid to use it, it won't make changes to MBR unless you tell it to do so):
You should have just one entry like these:

Type 07
Boot 80
BCyl 0
BHd 1
BSec 1
ECyl  1023 #the "real" value should be 16,708, but CHS "stops" at 1023
EHd 254
ESec 63
Startsector 63
Numsectors 268,430,022

But, since your drive is "really" a 200 Gb, i.e around 186 Gb of "true" bytes:
200x1000x1000x1000=200,000,000,000
200,000,000,000/1024/1024/1024=186

It was most probably formatted with appropriate values for it's size, with Numsectors around 390,000,000.

You can run beeblebrox and report them.

I suspect, this is guesswork at the moment, that you hit a known limit or hard disk size barrier, the "48bit LBA one", see here:
http://www.48bitlba.com/
you do not say which OS you are running, so, with another guess on my part, I would say Windows XP pre SP1:
http://www.48bitlba.com/winxp.htm
or Win2k pre SP3:
http://www.48bitlba.com/win2k.htm

DO run the tools you can find on the site:
http://www.48bitlba.com/hdinfo.htm
http://www.48bitlba....ebiglbatool.htm
and upgrade OS if necessary.

Please do report your findings and (hopefully) the fix that worked.

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 20 November 2006 - 05:28 AM

[Eyedoctor2]

Jaclaz,

First thank you very much for replying.

I apologize for not including my OS- Windows XP SP2.

Running beeblebrox I get the exact values you listed except

Numsectors 390716802

I ran http://www.48bitlba....ebiglbatool.htm and it said that since I have sP2 that it passed and there was nothing to do.

Should I purchase the infotool?

You are correct that I have run Partition Magic several times in the past. The most recent time I used it to remove all partitions that I had previously made. I did so after purchasing the new 320gb sata hard drive.

Thanks again for your help!

[jaclaz]

Eyedoctor2 said:

Should I purchase the infotool?

Well, wait a minute before spending money, I would have thought that the trial would have given enough info.
However it is not that expensive, and it's however a handy diagnostic tool.

Let's try this before, manually:
Check with Regedit that the keys are as in this articles:
http://support.micro...kb/303013/en-us
and check the version of ATAPI.SYS

Double check your hard drives and their documentation if there is a jumper related to the 137 Gb barrier or something like "Limit number of reported cylinders".

If the above is OK, the other thing that might be could be an incompatible BIOS of the motherboard and/or of the attached card, you should try looking on the respective manufacturer sites if any fix is available.

Try also these two programs:
SIW:
http://www.gtopala.com/index.html
and
SIV:
http://siv.mysite.wa...-members.co.uk/

both give lots of info on hardware and maybe you could find something from their output.

You can also try to run from DOS the intel program:
http://www.intel.com...b/cs-009302.htm
http://www.intel.com...b/cs-009301.htm

And this one (from XP):
http://www.hdtune.com/

I'll post if any other idea comes to my mind....


jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 20 November 2006 - 07:08 AM

[Eyedoctor2]

Jaclaz,

Again thanks!

First, the Atapi.sys version is current.

Second, Windows does report the drive to be 186 gb. Just as it reports that my secondary hardrive is 320gb.

The problem is with partion magic, testdisk and beeblebrox all report it to be 131+gb.

I know that this is a new problem because previously Norton Ghost and Partition Magic worked fine without any reported errors. I have at this time a backup created by Norton Ghost 77 days ago but hate to go back that far as I am always making changes. I thought that all this time Norton Ghost had been making automatically scheduled incremental backups. I didn't realize the problem until I tried to use Ghost to create another full backup.

I believe the problem started after removing the partitions in the C (200gb) drive with partition magic. I have contacted symatec support but am still waiting to hear back from them.

I am not at home so I can't try the other utilities that you suggest. I will try tonight.

Is there a software program that I can use to correct the partition size without losing the data on the hard drive?

Thanks again!

[jaclaz]

Eyedoctor2 said:

Is there a software program that I can use to correct the partition size without losing the data on the hard drive?

Well, I am afraid not, you see, the partition data in the MBR is correct, (the 390716802 you report, which is approximately the value I expected "Numsectors around 390,000,000").

To be more exact, a value of 390716802 in Numsectors would mean a CHS geometry of 24,321x255x63, i.e.
24,321x255x63x512=390,716,865x512=200,047,034,880 bytes, corresponding
in "Hd Manufacturer Gb" to:
200,047,034,880/1000/1000/1000=200 Gb
and in "real Gb" to:
200,047,034,880/1024/1024/1024=186 Gb


So the MBR is correct, there must be something somewhere else, (at this point and from what you report I am inclined to think it could be something in the Registry, if you are positive that there is nothing "suspect" in the motherboard or card BIOS) that makes these utilities "see" the drive as 132 Gb.

Can you try running a CHKDSK from a command prompt:
http://www.ss64.com/nt/chkdsk.html
WITHOUT any parameter and take note of what it says?

jaclaz

[Eyedoctor2]

I will run chkdsk when I get home.

I previously ran chkdsk /r and chkdsk /p and it reported uncorrectable errors.

Would it help at all if I opened up the box and connected the hard drive directly to the motherboard, temporarily disconnecting my dvd and dvdrw drives?

My reluctance to blame the controller card stems from the fact that when the card bios screen flashes up at the beginning it detects a 186 gb drive. Also, Norton Ghost previously ran with this controller card though I did not have the sata drive attached to the motherboard at that time.

History- I previously had the 186gb ide drive partitioned and was saving backups via Ghost on one partition. The hard drive was on the controller card and the dvd and dvdrw were on the motherboard along with a cdrw drive. I then purchased the sata drive, removed the partitions on the 186gb drive and removed the cdrw drive.

So presently sata drive is on motherboard, along with dvd and dvdrw. 186 gb ide continues to be on controller card.

I don't know if this information helps much but as an eyedoctor it never hurts to get a good medical history.

Thanks again for your willingness to help.

Edit:

RESULTS OF CHKDSK

I am going to include 3 gifs with this post.

First is screenshot of chkdsk

Second is Norton Partition Magic summary screen

Third is error message given when trying to resize using Norton Partition Magic.

Hope that helps!

Thanks again!

Attached File(s)

•  JPEG2.gif (47.42K)
  Number of downloads: 36
•  JPEG3.gif (81.75K)
  Number of downloads: 27
•  JPEG1.gif (35.77K)
  Number of downloads: 29

This post has been edited by Eyedoctor2: 21 November 2006 - 06:31 AM

[jaclaz]

I have not much ideas left:
1) Chkdsk sees the partiiton allright ÷190Gb
2) Windows Explorer ALSO sees it allright ÷190GB
3) Norton Partition Magic ALSO sees it allright ÷190GB
4) The error comes when you try to resize it

That MUST be because somehow the disk (not the partition) is seen as having 16709 Cylinders, i.e. 132 Gb, and this happens with:
a ) MBRFIX
b ) TESTDISK
c ) BEEBLEBROX
d ) NORTON PARTITION MAGIC

Results 1) to 3) are normal as to read information on the partition the MBR is read, which as said, is correct.

Results 4) and a ) to d ) are also all coherent as to read information on the drive geometry the disk driver is interrogated, which actually interrogates the hard disk.

So something must be wrong in
EITHER:
1) the information the hard disk supplies, and this can be only be attributed to:
1a ) a jumper setting on the hard disk
1b ) a jumper or setting in the card or its BIOS
1c ) a setting in the motherboard BIOS that somehow "overrides" board one, though I doubt it

OR:
2) the information the disk driver is correct, but it is badly "translated", and this can be only attributed to:
2a ) a defective driver (disk, card or bus)
2b ) a "hidden" setting or filter somewhere that "overrides" the right values

From the "history" you supplied, the only other thing I can fathom is some kind of conflict with the SATA drive, so, yes, trying the drive hooked directly to the board would be a good troubleshooting step, though cannot say how many "good" info we can get from that.
I would suggest the following:
1) just remove the SATA drive leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
2) remove DVDR leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
3) remove DVDRW leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
4) attach 186 Gb drive directly to MB leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
5) remove the card, run said apps to check if anything changed
6) re-insert card and attach to it 186 Gb drive, run said apps to check if anything changed
7) re-connect just the SATA drive, run said apps to check if anything changed
8) re-connect DVDRW leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
9) re-connect DVDR leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed

jaclaz

[Eyedoctor2]

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!


Thank you so much jaclaz!!

I was able to correct the error by connecting the 200 gb hard drive directly to the motherboard, whether or not the SATA drive was also connected.

Also had no problem if the 200gb drive was on the motherboard, SATA was disconnected and dvd drives were connected to the motherboard.

But when I reconnected the 200gb card to the ide controller card the problem recurred.

I looked up the drivers that the card was using and for some CRAZY reason Windows XP2 was using the older of the two available drivers. When I switched to the newer driver.......

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can now go back to using Norton Ghost to backup my C: drive.

Thanks so much for your help!

Have a great Thanksgiving.

God bless,

wz

[jaclaz]

Happy it worked!

Have a nice thanksgiving !

jaclaz

[SpideySpirit]

jaclaz, (my 1st post in this forum) almost a year after the last post in this topic, this wonderful utility is still saving people. I used it to remove System Commander 7 from the MBR and subsequently uninstalled sc7, so that my WinXP boots normally. Now I can install Ubuntu along side WinXp
...thx chris

This post has been edited by SpideySpirit: 12 September 2007 - 06:45 AM

[jaclaz]

SpideySpirit, on Sep 12 2007, 02:41 PM, said:

jaclaz, (my 1st post in this forum) almost a year after the last post in this topic, this wonderful utility is still saving people. I used it to remove System Commander 7 from the MBR and subsequently uninstalled sc7, so that my WinXP boots normally. Now I can install Ubuntu along side WinXp
...thx chris

Well, happy it helped solvig your problem.

Of course most of the thanks should go to Kaare Smith and Dion Nicolaas

jaclaz

[Godzilla]

Is it possible just to restore the boot code from a file?

I think MbrFix can only restore the whole MBR or just fix the boot code for Win and DOS.
But I am searching for a solution to restore the first 446 Byte of the MBR (the boot code).

Maybe it is possible to give MbrFix this feature.


Thanks

Godzilla

[jaclaz]

Have a look at both these batches:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/MBRBatch-0...LPHA-t3191.html
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/MakeBScmd-...EASE-t2362.html

You should get enough info to write a few lines of batch to use dsfo/dsfi to perform what you want, or you can do it manually, see here:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=3226&st=15
and just use "446" instead of "512".

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 07 February 2008 - 02:29 PM

[Godzilla]

Great.

I will look at it.

[adamthewebman]

thanks for the zip file!

[obernhardt]

jaclaz, on Dec 2 2005, 05:05 AM, said:

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

[jaclaz]

jaclaz

[Maelstorm]

kaares, on Nov 30 2004, 03:30 PM, said:

I ended up in the same problem, but my experience is that the diskpart command doesn't insert the boot code into the MBR. That it leaves for the setup program.

I was using Win PE to create a primary partition on a disk, acitvate, assign it. Then formatted using format C: /fs:ntfs.
Lastly copying in a Windows Embeded XP installation to C:.

Would not boot, just booted to a black screen without any errors, hanging around

So it seems that diskpart does not insert the bootcode into the MBR, just defines the partitions.

I was having this exact same problem myself. After partitioning the disk and formatting it, I ran winnt32 to copy the files to it, rebooted, then nothing. Black screen with a cursor blinking at you. This program fixed the problem. Thank you.

[Jotnar]

You can use bootsect.exe (on the vista install disc and maybe the WAIK) to generate the mbr boot code. Just remember to pass it the right switch depending on which os you're booting (xp,2003 or Vista,2008).

Cheers