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From: yirg.kenya on 6 Jun 2010 18:21
Well, I screwed up royally.

I think I screwed up the mbr. Although f12 will take me to the boot
screen, it's frozen. There's no cursor movement. "Enter" likewise does
nothing.

The data on the disk is ok. I can reboot using my old drive and mount
this one using an external sata->usb converter. Everything seems to be
there and accessible, in fact, I think, maybe too accessible (see
below).

However, I would like to fix up my new drive so I can boot from it
again without losing its data. Suggestions? I read the thread
http://www.cyberspacesupport.com/question.php?question_id=2401 and
there seemed to be mixed results with various techniques.

What happened: I was in ubuntu linux installed using wubi (this avoids
having to set up your own dual boot) and noticed that the last
partition was fat32 and not ntfs. So, thinking this was the ubuntu fs
I tried to change it from fat32 to ntfs. This was a big mistake (among
the others I made here) as this was actually the winxp recovery
partition.

After that, I could only get as far as "loading PBR for descriptor
3 ..."

My guess: the mbr is screwed up in thinking that the restore partition
is ntfs whereas in fact it's still fat32.

When I mount my new drive through the usb converter, I can actually
see the restore partition as a directory tree. For example, it has the
following directories: BIN, BAT, IMG, SRC1, SRC2, SRC3, SRC4, SRC5,
System Volume Information. I cannot see the on it the utility
partition.

They are all readable. Partition Wizard and Macrium both show this as
still a fat32 partition. I ran "error-checking" from the tools menu on
this partition and it showed nothing. I asked that it NOT fix anything
automatically. (I assume that under the table this runs a chkdisk.)

Any help most appreciated!
From: Brian K on 6 Jun 2010 18:47
yirg.kenya,

Does this help?

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixdesc.htm

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixpbr.htm


From: yirg.kenya on 7 Jun 2010 07:22
On Jun 6, 3:47 pm, "Brian K" <remove_t...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> yirg.kenya,
>
> Does this help?
>
> http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixdesc.htm
>
> http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixpbr.htm

Thanks! Looks like I'll have to figure out how to make a cd with
ptedit. I don't have a floppy drive

But, shouldn't there be a (reputable) program out there that can edit
the mbr graphically (and meaningfully, i.e., not just in hex) while
you're in windows? It's just a sector on the disk.

Partition Wizard (free, not Partition Magic) has a "Rebuild mbr"
command and I tried that. It may have rebuilt the mbr correctly but I
can't tell because the disk still won't boot when the internal drive--
doesn't seem to get as far as before. It may have made it un-bootable
because it wasn't the boot drive obviously when I ran Partition
Wizard. As before, the data is still there and I can still see the
recovery disk as a folder with subdirs, which I don't think is
correct, although PW recognizes it as a partition.

From: Brian K on 7 Jun 2010 17:03

Try this with BootIt NG.

Download BootIt NG. There is a one month trial usage. Unzip the file and
make a boot CD.



double click makedisk.exe, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
no tick for Registration, next
dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next
dot in VESA Video, next
dot in Partition Work (Don't put a dot in Normal), next
don't choose any Default Device Options (if necessary, these can be chosen
in BING), next
leave Registration strings blank, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish


Boot from the CD....



the BootIt NG CD boots to the Work with Partitions window
Click Close to get to the BING desktop. Click Settings and put a tick in
Full Partition List, click OK
Click Partition Work
Using the radio buttons on the left side of the Work with Partitions
window, select the appropriate hard drive. (It should be HD 0)
Select each partition in turn and click Properties (If you have 4 partition
you will have to check each)
In the File System field up the top, is the File System correct? If not,
click the drop down arrow and choose the correct entry
When finished, click OK, Close on the Work with Partitions Window, click
Reboot and remove the CD

Is that better?



From: Brian K on 9 Jun 2010 18:23
Any good news for the forum?


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