Repairing MBR on HD with bad clusters.

Little bit more info, here goes..

I haven't been listening too closely when I have been booting lately, with all the fans. So I removed the cover of the box, only to hear the disk clicking like crazy before displaying the message I displayed above

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Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device

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Nihil, as i'm typing this, the machine is running chkdsk again, pointless probably, but i'm curious.

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I do not think that this is recoverable.............if you PM me with a snail mail addy. I can send you a CD that might help

Windows XP Home SP3.............OK there are about 90 updates for hotfixes, but it will save a lot of time?

It will work just fine if you use the numbers off the sticker on your PC to install it.

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Will do Nihil. And YES to answer your other question, the linux installation did NOT finish properly, which was the beginning of the end..

did you put in extra flags while running the chkdsk command? here's a useful url http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

also suprised that app did not work, you should of been able to fix the mbr and boot partition to get yourself into a desktop and then been able to point n click to victory.

try it again and do fixboot & fixmbr then reboot.

Or grab a copy of Hirens BootCD, and that will have all the tools you'll ever need.

Well,

1. The install was going to stuff Windows anyway, as it was overwriting the MBR.

2. Stopping it in mid-flight would produce unpredictable results.

3. Using FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from a Vista disk was not a very good idea as again it is unpredictable...............the other multi-OS recovery disk should have been used.

4. Running chkdsk was a bad mistake, and has caused this problem. It should never be run externally IMO, and if you do have to; only run the file checking part.

I am inclined to blame the defective monitor and plugging and unplugging it whilst the installation was running.

The borked lappy HDD that I have seems very similar. The lappy got shot with a BB gun (:rolleyes:) and over time the screen laminates started to separate so the user had to power down and up to restore the failing image. He should have shut down Windows and rebooted ;)

I am going to try this:

http://hddguru.com/download/software....2.35.1178.exe

To totally wipe the HDD.

Then I will try to flash the HDD firmware to (hopefully) clear the bad sectors table/register. I will not be running CHKDSK, but will use the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test to check for any physical deterioration.

If that doesn't work then the drive is a brick and he will have to buy a new one.

This case might be slightly different though, so before doing what I am going to have to do, you might try installing SUSE again. My betting is that it won't let you, because it will think the drive is damaged, but if it does then FIXBOOT and FIXMBR should work on a clean install. That will still leave you with 7.9GB of wasted space :(

I doubt if it will work though, because it sounds as if the backup copy of the MBR has been overwritten or corrupted.

Good Luck!

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you might try installing SUSE again. My betting is that it won't let you.

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Your betting would be correct nihil. I did such two nights ago. The partition table was all screwed up, wouldn't let me edit anything. This in turn worries me about what the results are going to be when I get the XP cd in there. I already tried Hybr|d's suggestion, with the fixmbr utility, and it was still to no avail. Hopefully, re-installing XP will be a proper fix, if fixmbr doesn't work. If not, well. Lesson learned and a new HDD I guess.

Are you able to connect the drive to another system as "Slave"

i have an evil plan. ;)

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Are you able to connect the drive to another system as "Slave"

i have an evil plan.

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hmm, quite possibly :). Whad'ya got in mind pal ?

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Originally Posted by n01100110

hmm, quite possibly :). Whad'ya got in mind pal ?

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if you don't mind starting fresh ie loose all content on the drive, i would suggest run a disk nuking app. something that will kill the partitions and then we'll fill the drive with http://www.killdisk.com while it's mounted as a slave i from past experience have found that it's alot easier to "Fix" :) Well while it's in "Slave" mode there is nothing locking the drive etc etc it's free to taint

then recreate partitions and try your dual boot expedition once the drive is back in the original PC.

in the past i've recovered more then your little 440mb of bad sector from a drive.

Plenty more ideas floating around atm. :halo:

OK either get the software at the site I linked to, or get Darik's Boot & Nuke.

The idea is to totally overwrite the whole of the HDD so that when an OS installer looks at it, it will see a blank drive that it will want to format.

You next need to go to the HDD manufacturer's site and get their toolkit. What you are looking for is something that will flash the firmware but they might call it "disk recovery" or "reset factory defaults"

Whichever, it will reset the table of bad sectors.

I do not believe that there is anything actually wrong with your HDD, it is just that CHKDSK has marked it as having bad sectors.

EDIT:

I have just seen HYBR|D's post.........he seems to be thinking along the same lines as myself. I am not sure where CHKDSK stores the bad sector data, which is why I suggest using the manufacturer's software as well.

In my case I am not sure.............when you get a laptop with a screen that has been shot with a BB gun and whose DVD drive just makes nasty clunking sounds, anything is possible?:D

And for God's sake DO NOT run CHKDSK again. If you are concerned about the drive use the manufacturer's diagnostic tools , or the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test.

Don't try to install XP until you have done this...............it won't work I have already tried. Basically I had the same result with MOON OS Linux as you did with SUSE.

Both dBan and the manufacturer's toolkit create bootable media, so you don't need to take the HDD out, as I had to with the laptop drive.

Heh. I've had a problem similar before. Basically, about .... Well it was like 2003 or so, and I had a VERY huge issue with Power Outtages that day for some reason. Literally, the Power went out like 15 times before they got it fixed. I happened to be installing FreeBSD that day, and it basically would power off while writing to the MBR.... Yea....

Anyway, what might have happened, is that it was doing something like this when the power decided to tell you to wait. In other words, the disk drive is currently thinking it has nothing on it, and yes, it may have dome some damage using a Windows repair disk.

Contrary to popular opinion of AO of two members, Windows can't fix a lot of issues that have to do with hardware.

Now, before I continue, PLEASE tell me you have a stable monitor. I think I may have skimmed some of the post, but it seems like you had an issue with it.

Anyway, here is what you need to do:

1. Tell yourself "It will be OK".

2. Tell yourself "The first thing I try, may not work at all, because I'm trying fixes for multiple things".

Once that's done, you're ready to roll.

3. Try to boot from the OpenSUSE CD / DVD whatever, and once you get to the install, try "Advanced" if it can read the disk at all. Basically, we need to see if the disk for some reason crapped out (If a power surge, or some other thing happened to the drive, it may have been damaged however unlikely that is).

If you tried already (Not sure how you went about installing after this all happened) but basically, do the advanced stuff where it allows you to see what's actually going on on the HD. You need to try and read the Partition Table.

If you still can't see the drive, this seems odd yes, but really, grab a Slackware Linux Installation CD. The "cfdisk" utility on Slackware doesn't seem to care about much, and this COULD be a thing to try. Also note some drives won't allow cfdisk to open them in anything but "Read Only" but at least you'll know if it's that or not.

If you don't have access to a Floppy drive, I think some versions DO have something for the MBR. Basically, you may need to scrap everything (You DID make a back up right?)

What I did to fix my issue was grab a Windows 98 SE boot disk, boot from it (You can do similar from the CD, so see if it will work) and then, this:

cd C:
fdisk /mbr

Then I popped in a Linux CD, rebooted, and deleted the partition table by hand. Once I had basically a bare HD, I was able to set up an actual system. I was dual booting so I took out the Linux CD, popped in Windows, and it of course saw the Windows Partition I made from Linux, and installed to it.

Then I grabbed the Linux disk again, rebooted again, and installed it and Lilo, and everything was fine.

And as I skim over the posts on this page, I see Nihil, and Coffee Cup, all have the same idea I do... Lol. Basically, make the HD look like it did the day it was installed... No OS, No MBR, No Partition Table, and of course my idea might work, and if not, the one Nihil said about wiping it with the factory tools on CD, will.

If the drive isn't physically damaged somehow, one of these will work.

@ gore:

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Contrary to popular opinion of AO of two members, Windows can't fix a lot of issues that have to do with hardware.

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I agree totally...............Windows will tell you about its problems, which might be way downstream in a hardware situation. I have seen that so so many times :)

In all fairness to MS, the KB articles generally have a terse comment along the lines of "this might be a hardware issue" :D

That is why I consistently check for hardware problems in any situation. OK it might have nothing to do with it, but I don't give someone a machine back and have them come to me a couple of weeks later with a totally unrelated hardware problem. ;)

I must have done at least two dozen recovery jobs in the last few years where an overenthusiastic young person has screwed the MBR loading a Linux distro. Now, this is usually a 5 minute job, and the user should be able to do it themselves, but they cannot access the system and they have always mislaid the recovery CD :rolleyes:

The problem here was running CHKDSK outside of Windows..........which is why I think we have to reset the drive back to ex-factory condition.