Fix MBR

[Adcadet]

My wife's old computer has an old PATA HD in it that contains the boot record, and a newer HD that contains Windows XP on it. I tried removing the old HD, booting off the XP disk to a recovery console, and doing "fixmbr", but it fails to detect the OS (though the MB can see the HD). When I put the old HD back in it works fine. Am I missing something?

 

[Bozo]

You don't need to press F6 and add drivers do you?

Bozo :jokecolor:

 

[Adcadet]

Both drives are PATA and have always been detected by WinXP correctly, so I'm pretty sure I don't.

 

[P5-133XL]

I'm just going to guess here. Don't know, because I've never actually tried to test it, but I have a theory.

The old HD has the primary partition with the MBR. The newer HD has an extended partition, but the OS was installed on it (quite possible). The problem is that you can only boot to primary partitions, so when you try to place the MBR on a drive with only extended partitions it fails. Also, since you can only boot to primary partitions, and the recovery disk knows that, it does not even check to see if there is a bootable OS on it.

Also, if you pulled the master, then you probably need to re-jumper the slave to Master or Single (for WD). That kind of error can cause all sorts of drive detection issues.

 

[Adcadet]

I'm just going to guess here. Don't know, because I've never actually tried to test it, but I have a theory.

The old HD has the primary partition with the MBR. The newer HD has an extended partition, but the OS was installed on it (quite possible). The problem is that you can only boot to primary partitions, so when you try to place the MBR on a drive with only extended partitions it fails. Also, since you can only boot to primary partitions, and the recovery disk knows that, it does not even check to see if there is a bootable OS on it.

Also, if you pulled the master, then you probably need to re-jumper the slave to Master or Single (for WD). That kind of error can cause all sorts of drive detection issues.

Interesting theory.

Hmmm...interesting theory. I poked around in the disk management section of administrative tools, and can't actually figure out how to tell if it's a primary or extended partition. I should have made it a primary, but maybe I screwed that up. The partition style is listed as MBR. It's also a basic disk, not dynamic.

The old HD was the slave, but I still got jumper weirdness when I pulled it - I changed the newer HD's jumper settings from master with slave to master/single, and it didn't detect. I put it back on master with slave and it was fine. And it is a WD drive.

 

[Adcadet]

I'm just going to guess here. Don't know, because I've never actually tried to test it, but I have a theory.

The old HD has the primary partition with the MBR. The newer HD has an extended partition, but the OS was installed on it (quite possible). The problem is that you can only boot to primary partitions, so when you try to place the MBR on a drive with only extended partitions it fails. Also, since you can only boot to primary partitions, and the recovery disk knows that, it does not even check to see if there is a bootable OS on it.

Also, if you pulled the master, then you probably need to re-jumper the slave to Master or Single (for WD). That kind of error can cause all sorts of drive detection issues.

Hmmm...interesting theory. I poked around in the disk management section of administrative tools, and can't actually figure out how to tell if it's a primary or extended partition. I should have made it a primary, but maybe I screwed that up. The partition style is listed as MBR. It's also a basic disk, not dynamic.

The old HD was the slave, but I still got jumper weirdness when I pulled it - I changed the newer HD's jumper settings from master with slave to master/single, and it didn't detect. I put it back on master with slave and it was fine. And it is a WD drive.

 

[Pradeep]

In the recovery console, try:

map
fixmbr
fixboot

Please have a backup of your data in case the above doesn't work. I'm going to try it on a drive at work tomorrow. Was told it may salvage a drive that is otherwise knackered. Problem I'm having is how to get windows 2003 enterprise to boot with RAID drivers into the Windows 2003 recovery console, when the server doesn't have a floppy drive. Everything is all automated with the server driver cd, then the OS.

 

[Pradeep]

I don't know how that would effect XP, that combo was for 2003 ES.

 

[Adcadet]

Thanks, Pradeep. Since I just put in a new 500 GB SATA drive, it should be simple to copy the current boot drive to the new one, along with the data. Then I could dump the old 8 GB drive that holds the MBR. But of course, it's not: WinXP does not have drivers for the SATA controller, and I refuse to install a floppy drive. Arrrgh!