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Repairing the MBR (Read 8696 times)

Richard K

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	Repairing the MBR Jun 20^th, 2009 at 2:00pm If I repairing the MBR in Win XP causes problems will restoring a Ghost 2003 or Acronis image get the MBR back where it started? When making an image of the bootable partition that contains my OS I don't do anything extra to include additional information about the MBR. Just plain old create partition image. Richard
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MrMagoo

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Re: Repairing the MBR
Reply #1 - Jun 20^th, 2009 at 5:51pm

Richard K wrote on Jun 20^th, 2009 at 2:00pm:

When making an image of the bootable partition that contains my OS I don't do anything extra to include additional information about the MBR. Just plain old create partition image.

Then no, your image does not contain the MRB, and restoring it will not change the MRB.

You should be able create a valid copy of the bootloader in the MRB. Have you tried doing a repair with the WinXP install disk?

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MrMagoo

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	Re: Repairing the MBR Reply #2 - Jun 20^th, 2009 at 5:52pm You may also want to consider posting your question on one of the cloning boards. They have the most experience with this.
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NightOwl

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Re: Repairing the MBR
Reply #3 - Jun 22^nd, 2009 at 1:49am

richkl

Quote:

If I repairing the MBR in Win XP causes problems will restoring a Ghost 2003 or Acronis image get the MBR back where it started?

Well...sort of,....and it depends.....

It's a long thread, but you can get some insight into your question here: Restoring OS only image to new HDD

It appears that Ghost 2003 does store a copy of the MBR when doing a backup image--but, Ghost 2003 does not have a specific function that allows you to restore your MBR as a separate function.

To make a long story short, your HDD's MBR has to be zeroed before Ghost 2003 will restore the MBR that is saved with your image--otherwise Ghost will only adjust the Master Partition Table in the MBR, but not restore the MBR's other data.

What you should use is a specific utility that can save and restore a copy of the MBR. Dan Goodell mentions a utility he created in reply #63 of the above referenced thread. His MBR Saver (mbrsaver.com). Apparently it's bundled with his Dsrfix utility.

I would make sure I have a whole disk image backup of my HDD before messing with these types of utilities. And, it's even better if you have a spare HDD to put on the system to *play* and *practice* with until you're comfortable with the commands--best to disconnect the other HDDs while testing!

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NightOwl

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Re: Repairing the MBR
Reply #4 - Jun 22^nd, 2009 at 10:23am

richkl

Here's a link that talks about using Dan's *mbrsaver* program: How to use *mbrsaver.com*.

Look closely--you do not want to overwrite your partition table information in the future--just in case it no longer matches the data in the saved file--partition tables change over time when we *mess* with our computers! Using Ghost to restore our images can make small adjustments to the partition table behind our backs that we're not aware of.

Making and restoring the whole MBR for just this effort and then discarding that file would be fine. But, restoring it several weeks or months from now--you might screw things up if there have been changes to the master partition table. But, if you only save the MBR boot code--you should be able to restore that now, and again in the future if you use the option to *spare the partition table information*!

So, just be aware of what you're doing and why!

Running the *fixmbr* tool in the WinXP Console essentially is doing something like that--it replaces the MBR boot code with a new one while sparing the Master Partition Table!

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zmdmw52

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Re: Repairing the MBR
Reply #5 - Aug 15^th, 2009 at 12:40pm

Richard K wrote on Jun 20^th, 2009 at 2:00pm:

If I repairing the MBR in Win XP causes problems will restoring a Ghost 2003 or Acronis image get the MBR back where it started?

When making an image of the bootable partition that contains my OS I don't do anything extra toinclude additional information about the MBR.Just plain old create partition image.

Richard

If you're still following this thread, have a look here:
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1197239819/13#13

I did not find MBR Whisky to be of any use in restoring the MBR though it saved it as a .dat file; a better option would be to use the dd command from a Live CD or bootpart to save it as a .bin file.

Code:

[root@localhost liveuser]# dd if=/dev/sdb4 of=/media/S5_1/Fedora_11.bin bs=512 count=1

Linux User 483705 | (openSUSE 11.1, Ubuntu 9.04, i686) w/ Windows XP

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