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View Full Version : Question about the MBR. I think I deleted my own MBR


longhorn
December 26th, 2005, 10:28 PM
Long story. I'll try to keep it to just the facts.
So I had 2k on my hard drive. I split the 120 G partition into 2 equal parts. Then I installed 2k (again) on the second partition. My goal was to do a fresh install of 2k, copy important files to the 2nd installation/partition, then delete the first partition/installation, and finish up by expanding the partition back to it's original 120G size. Okay? Now everything went smooth up until the last part when I was expanding the partition back to 120G. By the way I was using Partition Magic 8. So I select the option to use all the space on the drive. I take a look at what the new table is going to look like and I notice that there is around 7mb of unused space that is not assigned to any partition. I stretch the partition so that that 7mb is included in the partition. I got a warning message that the partition extended past the 1024 mark and if i continued the disk might not be bootable. Well, believe it or not I continued. I have a bad feeling I extended my partition right over the boot sector. Is that even possible? Either way my system won't boot. I'm getting the old "INVALID SYSTEM DISK. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" message. I could really use some advice.

joeassneck
December 27th, 2005, 02:45 PM
boot up from the windows 2000 disk, choose "R" for the repair option. Choose "C" for the console.
Select the system you want to repair ( 1 ), enter the administrator password, then type "HELP".
This will show lots of commands.
Type "FIXMBR" or try "FIXBOOT".

If you have a bootable disk you can try FDISL /MBR

joeassneck
December 27th, 2005, 02:50 PM
..

longhorn
December 27th, 2005, 05:47 PM
No offense, but can someone with more than 4 posts verify this advice? I am very protective about my system. And which one do i use? FIXMBR or FIXBOOT?

joeassneck
December 28th, 2005, 06:06 PM
Here is the microsoft page on the use of the repair console and the restoring of the MBR.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en%2Dus/?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkd_tro_ldau.asp

bAdWaYz
December 28th, 2005, 07:20 PM
Fixboot or fixmbr will not harm your system, Either could be used and it wouldn't hurt things but if you have overwritten your mbr either or both may not work. While you are at a revocery console you could use fidisk before you do a fixboot or fixmbr just to see what it has listed for your disk layout.