Repairing MBR on HD with bad clusters.

Okay, the un-thinkable happened to me. Probably a simple endeavor for most of you, but for me I never encountered this problem so theres a jackass first for everything right ? .. heh.. I was installing Open SuSE live on my box, which i planned to dually partition with XP home. The monitor that I have, flickers quite a bit, it's an old piece of trash. So that led me to unplugging it more than once and plugging it back in (the monitor).. The result was nil. So i physically shut off the box during the install, **YES I KNOW**, dumb....... So i'm guessing that I caused some cross linkage problems with the hdd, and messed up the MBR altogether, and when i fire up the machine now, I get "No active OS Partition !, insert cd or reboot" .. [I really hope you guys don't break out the flame throwers on this thread :(]

Things i've tried thus far:
1.) Seeing as I have a Vista recovery disk only, and not an XP disk, I fired up the Vista disk and skipped the install, went to recovery mode and got the command prompt open. I first tried fixboot, and fixmbr, which were to no avail, I thought they were available on vista too but i guess i was wrong. I tried scandisk, which didn't work either.. So finally, I ran chkdsk /f /r and let that run. It had alot of listings of bad sectors on which it claimed it repaired when that finished.

2.) I had a system suite recovery disk which came with my laptop (vista), but it stated dually compatible with XP, vista, 7. So I went to the partition table, and on my hdd (79.6 GB), it states that 7.9 GB have bad sectors. "Wow". Even after running chkdsk and repairing all the bad sectors, I still have 7.9 GB of nil sectors ? I tried toggling the NTFS partition as "active" on the MBR, but it will *NOT* allow me to because of the bad sectors.. Now I have no problem stating myself as a Newbie on here. This problem I thought i could fix easily, but i'm leaving my ego at the door on this one. It took me a lot of hours of playing around before deciding to write this thread.. Help AO

You need to get a Windows XP disk then run a FIXMBR and FIXBOOT.....I fear you may have made it worse with the Vista disk......especially if it's an OEM version which it sounds like it is......

and the 7.9 gigs of bad sectors must be related to the XP\Vista File System\Architecture incompatibility.......ZOIKS!


and.......the Vista Home disk repair could be formatting for FAT......EEK....I don't even wanna think about it! Good luck my friend, hope you can get her back up!

I am going out so I shall be quick.

1. I don't think that turning off the machine did any harm..........hell! I have turned off windows machines at the power supply hundreds of times with no ill effects. All you usually get is the "windows did not shut down properly" message and the bootup mode options screen. All I would expect is that Linux would not work because it hadn't loaded completely.

2. Are your Vista recovery disk and your system suite recovery disk the same thing?

I will post later about the screen issue.

Right now I do not hold out much hope as I think your HDD has been marked as having bad sectors.

There is software that will probably fix that, but it costs as much as 3 or 4 HDDs and you have to buy it up front.

Cheers for now :)

Hiya'h Bud..

http://www.ambience.sk/fdisk-master-...ilo-fixmbr.php

you ow me a cold Beer. :)

you want to grab this util

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Download fixmbr - MbrFix tool to repair master boot record

MbrFix is same as fixmbr or fdisk /mbr, but works in any Windows including Windows NT, XP, 2000, 2k.

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HYBR|D: Listen man, i'll buy you a cold beer anyway, cause this is such a handy app. But I got some crappy news. I don't have a floppy drive on my laptop, so I threw the utility on a disk, and ran it as such: <quote> fixmbr.exe /drive 0 listpartitions:
1.)NTFS
2.)Win95 # Hmmmm. Possible conversion from the vista rescue disk ?
</quote>
So then I proceeded. <quote>E:\fixmbr.exe /drive 0 fixmbr</quote>

Rebooted the machine and got <quote>Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device</quote>

I then, go back into the recovery suite utility, into the manual partitioner, and it sais that there are still 7.9 gb of bad sectors, and that the primary partition is damaged. Yank the HDD or what folks ? <quote>Nihil: 2. Are your Vista recovery disk and your system suite recovery disk the same thing?</quote> Negative, they're different. As far as the monitor, garbage day is monday ;) .. Any hope guys ?

HYBR|D: Listen man, i'll buy you a cold beer anyway, cause this is such a handy app. But I got some crappy news. I don't have a floppy drive on my laptop, so I threw the utility on a disk, and ran it as such: e:\fixmbr.exe /drive 0 listpartitions:
1.)NTFS
2.)Win95 # Hmmmm. Possible conversion from the vista rescue disk ?

So then I proceeded. E:\fixmbr.exe /drive 0 fixmbr

Rebooted the machine and got

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

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I then, go back into the recovery suite utility, into the manual partitioner, and it sais that there are still 7.9 gb of bad sectors, and that the primary partition is damaged. Yank the HDD or what folks ?

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Nihil: 2. Are your Vista recovery disk and your system suite recovery disk the same thing?

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Negative, they're different. As far as the monitor, garbage day is monday ;) .. Any hope guys

Hi there, I am back.............

Went out and scored a couple of Segate Barracuda 160's for a very good price........ fell in with bad company and good beer :drink:so I have just resurfaced :D

So, let us continue?

I am guessing that you are in the USA so it will be early evening for you? it is around 24.00Hrs here, but I have just slept off the beer :D

I have never tried to use AO as an interactive chat site but it must be possible?

Hmm.. I have never thought of trying it either lol, but you & I will be the creators of this new found glory eh ? lol.. Atleast it will ease my troubleshooting pain in the mean time.. Yes, I am USA, east coast, new england :). (Ripping hair out, due to system) .. Hehe, can't help it folks.

OK, I have been given a system to fix................pretty much the same; as the HDD is hosed, and shows 440MB of bad sectors out of 40GB.

I tried loading XP Home and then MOON OS (a Cambodian Linux distro based on Ubuntu/Debian)..... no joy, the drive is hosed.

Now, back to your problem:

What I suspect is that you were not setting Linux up correctly to run in a Linux/Windows environment. You need to tell Linux to put its boot manager (Grub/Lilo) in the Linux partition, otherwise it will go native and overwrite the Windows MBR.

This is usually fixable through FIXMBR and FIXBOOT but that is if you let Linux complete loading.

I guess that it didn't work because Linux hadn't finished? :(

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.


EDIT:

Regarding what Cber|d suggested................ should work, but you ran chkdsk from an external medium (CD). chkdsk is a real HDD brickmaker, as it sees something it doesn't understand and marks it as a bad sector.:eek:

Hi, I promised a bit more info so here goes:

1. chkdsk

This utility will fix file system errors but can be very dangerous, as it will tag any sector it cannot understand as "bad". This is a problem as it does not apply to Windows systems only.

Please be aware that it does not repair bad sectors, it just marks them as such. This can cause big problems.

2. Flickering Screen

As a general principle you should not run a system with known failing hardware.

The probable causes are:

1. Refresh rate set too low.......60 MHz for example.....72,75,85 are what you should be looking for with a CRT. If you have an LCD then 60 is just fine....they don't flicker they just crap out:D

2. You are running in safe mode or installing an OS.............they default to the lowest "safe" settings..... which would be 60 MHz.

3. Defective VGA cable or ports (screenside or MoBo) Try a different cable. If it is the ports then you need to replace the equipment, if you do not have an alternative connection.

4. The screen is dying. You should replace it immediately, as it can cause untold damage to your system.

5. Heat. With the screen unplugged from the power run a vacuum cleaner over its ventilation slots.

DO NOT REMOVE THE CASING UNLESS YOU ARE A QUALIFIED TV ENGINEER

Three months after you last used it, there are capacitors in there that will kill you :eek:

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.

Thanks gore, nihil, Hybr|D and the rest of you for your in detail replies.. Yes gore, i'm trying to tell myself it's going to be ok :).

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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

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Well Nihil, I pretty much fit the bill for that guy in this case what can I say :)

Update:
Seeing as though the HDD in question is in fact Seagate manufactured, I ran a boot diagnostic check called "Sea Tools" (http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/sup...ls/seatooldreg), and it failed the test horrifically with 73 different errors. My next move is to nuke the disk with killdisk, and see if I can get this device back to normal. All I got for now. Not trying to make this thread go to 2011 I swear ;)

I seem to remember a post a while back that said the drive was clicking. That indicates mechanical failure, at least in my mind. I would replace the drive, and call it a day. I saw a shell shocker at newegg.com today that was a 1.5TB WD HDD for $80. Time is money... you have probably spent enough.

Well, my first move would be to wipe the HDD then use Seatools to flash the firmware or reset the factory defaults. THEN scan with Seatools.............if it fails you need a new drive.

Also, if you saw any problems reported by Seatools reading the SMARTDRIVE logs, then the drive is certainly defective.

I wouldn't trust a clicking drive to perform as anything more than a paperweight. Even if you can get an OS on there, it is on its way out.

If it clicks regularly then I would replace it. BUT if this just happened during this problem, then it is possibly nothing to worry about.............rapid tracking for something it can't find will cause that in my experience.

I must say, it does sound as if the HDD is on its last legs though.

1.5TB?.....................I guess I only have a couple that would recognise one :D

*UPDATE* :)

Burned a copy of Hirens boot CD (http://www.hirensbootcd.net), booted up in "Mini XP" mode, opened up a partition manager, and strangely found my NTFS partition completely intact, with no bad sectors on the drive at all ?? Still scratching my head over that one. Anyway, I toggled the partition as active, rebooted and *VOILA*, mbr restored, and it's alive.. Thank you all so much for the help, Nihil for the incoming snail mail, and HYBR|D for the Hiren's boot CD suggestion.

Heh. Good thing you didn't listen to me, I would have cost you $80 :D ... Did the drive stop clicking?

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Heh. Good thing you didn't listen to me, I would have cost you $80 ... Did the drive stop clicking?

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Well, good thing I didn't listen to myself at one point either lol. The holes in the walls would have added up to alot more than $80 :).

As a matter of fact the drive did stop clicking, it's weird. But i'm gonna ride the horse till it dies for now.

lol. :)

Keep good backups! :eek:

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Thanks gore, nihil, Hybr|D

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Hmmmm............"The good, the bad and the ugly", but maybe in reverse order?

:D:lildevil::shocked::drink:


I cannot be the ugly one because I have the best photo on my senior citizen's bus pass of any of my friends. :D

I would expect the small packet to arrive Monday, once US Customs have made as many clones as they want?..............I valued it at 40c, as that is about the price of two CDs?

Once everything is up and normal I would try Seatools deep scan again.........

Good luck,................and you are welcome, this is AO and we are a community.

Glad you got it sorted bud.

Wouldn't worry to much about a few clicks from the drive everynow and again ;) Once it starts making loooong hard clicks then you need to backup and replace. :)

guess you just need to access the drive while it's resources weren't locked by any processes.

Jeez, HYBR|D, your avatar must be huge. I have been watching it for about 3 hours waiting for it to load... :drink:

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Originally Posted by westin

Jeez, HYBR|D, your avatar must be huge. I have been watching it for about 3 hours waiting for it to load... :drink:

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:hello: :D