Recovering corrupt partition table/mbr

Hi there,

I am attempting to recover a 250GB hard drive that was partitioned as one NTFS partition on Win2k SP4. The drive magically died one day. Using various Linux-based utilities, I can see the partition and see all of the files. The problem is that the partition table reads that there is a 15 MB FAT12 partition on the drive, and the remaining 249-odd GB drive is empty. Win2k Recovery Console Chkdsk won't touch it. A directory listing in the console reports back garbage. Fixboot tells me it's a FAT partition and writes a MBR accordingly.

What I need to do is manually configure the partition table to see the whole drive as one NTFS partition. We purchasd Disk Director today to do this. However, when using disk editor, we cannot get it to save the right parameters for the first partition. It keeps knocking the number of Cyl's back from 32300 to 558.

Any assistance in getting this partition back would be great. Thanks!

 

Hello jeversol,

Thank you for purchasing Acronis Disk Director Suite (http://www.acronis.com/products/diskdirector/).

Have you tried to use Acronis Recovery Expert? Please also let us know what happend right before you lost your partition.

Could you please download Acronis Report utility available at http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe and run it, create a report and send it to support@acronis.com? This would provide us with detailed information on the hard disk partition structure.

Thank you.

 

http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/5327/5327.html

Above is a link which might prove helpful.Read it right through,because if you find you cannot recover the data via methods suggested on this forum,at least you'll know how to rebuild the MBR from scratch and restore the actual drive to a usable state.

 

Hi

I experienced the same problem. Disk seemed to be unable to boot from, but disk data was available when I booted from other partitions. I then ran the fixboot command from xp repair console, which was really helpful... After that, I found that only 9 mb of 120 gigabytes of data were available as fat32 data. The rest was unavailable, or showed up as fat12 in some of the recovery applications (at this time, without any data). I tried varoius types of partition recovery programs with no results. So I changed tactics to file recovery. I found that the best option for me was http://www.r-tt.com/ R-studio, a brilliant tool! Virtuallab data recovery will also do the job, but is more expensive.

 

What was the solution to the problem?

I have a slave hard drive that is a 250GB that has 3 partitions created by Disk Director. I was using it on Saturday and it was working okay. I had moved MP3 files from a DVD to one of the partitions. I did a reboot and all the partitions on the slave drive were gone. I went to the Disk Director and it was able to find the 2nd partition but not the 1st or 3rd. I tried other recovery programs but nothing has helped.

To make matters worse, on a recent reboot tonight I recented an Error 1 from OS Selector. I reinstalled Disk Director and OS Selector but now I have lost Windows 2000 (SP4) on my C drive. I do have a recent True Image but it on the slave drive in the 1st partition which can't be found.

It there any program that can help me recover my missing partitions? Or, any tips on how I can recover them?

Any help would be appreciated.

Keith

 

Viruses have been known to muck up the MBR = Master Boot Record.
Has anyone tried booting from a Win98 rescue diskette (created in Win98 -> Control panel -> Add or delete Programs)?

Boot with it - then "FDISK /MBR"
Works on drives with XP

This fixes the master boot record and leaves your data in tact. (Some boot managers use MBR though - they will get wiped out. If that happens use Disk Director or FDISK to set the partion you wish to boot from active. That partition will boot - then install OS Selector if necessary)

Might be wise not to use anything that modifies MBR - that includes Linux boot stuff.

 

I have had touble restoring my MBR on a Windows 2000 machine. I tried to use the OS selector with another drive, but now have just one drive in it and want to boot from Windows 2000. When I do, I get the error
"No boot devices were found-system halted"
I found the program mbrautowrite_en.exe and created the floppy. When i boot with it and fix the mbr, I eject it from the floppy drive and hit a key - Windows 2000 boots without a problem. I then try to reboot the system and once again I am told
"No boot devices were found-system halted"
and I have to re-boot with the mbrautowrite_en.exe buitl floppy.
Any idea how I can fix the MBR such that it will survive a re-boot?
I do not have any antivirus settings in my MBR. It is a Dell XPS 600 computer with a 120 gig hard drive.
-Graham Barden

 

Re: Recovering corrupt partition table/mbr W98&W2k

I was able to fix the Win2000 disk by going into the console and typing "fixmbr" and then "fixboot". Acronis support had told me to just do "fixmbr" which did not work.
Next question - the other disk that got corrupted was a Win98SE drive. I booted to a floppy and at the c:> typed "fdisk /mbr".
Something seemed to happen, but then I re-booted and it again gave me the error "No boot devices were found – system halted"
Any ideas as to what to try next?
-Graham Barden

 

Re: Recovering corrupt partition table/mbr W98&W2k

Hello Graham,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Multiboot Managing Software.

Could you please create Acronis Report in the way described at Acronis Help Post and send it to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread? We will investigate your problem and provide you with the possible solution.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Hello,

I think Active@ Undelete restore utility might help you. It has the best restore methods. It really saved me a couple times. Recommended.
http://www.active-undelete.com/

 

I know its a little late to help the original guy but maybe this can help the rest of you. backup your mbr's if youre able before hand. if its to late to do that attempt a utility called testdisk. for advanced users only. also if youre having problems. you may try taking a dos hex editor or writing a debug program to zero out the first sector of your hdd. and then run testdisk

 

Hello pythorian,

We appreciate your collaboration on this matter.

If you have any further experience to share, please feel free to post it on this forum.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko