Can't zero out or wipe MBR even after FDISR uninstall

I'm trying to zero out hard drive and start with fresh install. However when trying to create a new MBR with fujitsu zero out program provided by oem it fails and says disk error. I tried fixmbr and fixboot but problem still persists with saying MBR is non standard or corrupted. I suppose that since FDISR was so deeply entrenched into the MBR that it's what is causing my inability to zero out the mbr and so my question is what is a good program that will zero out and do a low level format/wipe of hard drive? OEM product didn't work. Is there a MBR rebuild or wipe program that will get rid of ENTIRE MBR and BOOT record?

 

I take it you didn't make a copy of MBR when you installed FD.

Are you wiping the disk because of FD itself or just for a fresh start period. If it's a uninstall you need for FD just delete snaps (other than Primary) and then you will have the Primary left, when you uninstall FD it will take the Primary with it.

If you still need something to wipe the disk DBAN is free http://dban.sourceforge.net/

When you click on the CD and DVD Media it will let you d/l the ISO image, you will need to burn it to a CD and the you will be able to use it. Please read the instructions that come with it.

Do you have more than one HD? If so make sure DBAN doesn't wipe the other drives other than C drive.

 

Well that's just it, I don't know if I was truly trojan or virus free before I installed FDISR so not sure if it's that or a boot sector virus or what. I've read about boot sector viruses remaining after a high level format. So I'm hoping to do a low level format and make sure the WHOLE MBR and boot sector are zero'd. However I have a problem now. I don't have any software that is capable of burning an ISO image onto a cd. I have a cdrw dvdrw but I didn't install the software. It currently just functions with xp homes default roxio burner that is standard on all xp home boxes. So I googled free iso image burner software but there are so many I'm not sure which one is good. Any clues? You'd think it would be easier to fully erase the total MBR but noooooooo. Fixmbr and fixboot do not fully erase and fully rewrite the WHOLE thing. Sheesh why can't this be easier. Anyhooters, I'll take any advice on which free iso burning image product would work for this. Some look kinda scarey.

Does FDISR lock out formatting of the MBR or what?

 

IsoBuster can be a handy tool. You can use it as a free (limited) or pro version. I *think* the free version allows you to burn iso images. It's a great program that can do a lot of things, it (pro version) saved me once when I accidentally erased a dvd+rw with important school stuff. IsoBuster managed to recover the files.

http://www.isobuster.com/

Edit: No wait, thats probably not correct. You asked for burning software. Think IsoBuster just extracts images.

 

If that's the case you were never sure I would wipe it and start over for a piece of mind. Do you have a floppy drive on this computer? If so, when you reinstall FD make sure you make a copy of the MBR and then put it in a safe place.

Well DBAN will do the trick and it doesn't take forever. I don't remember if you can send the ISO image directly to the cdrw drive to be burned through the OS itself. What is your operating system? The only one I'm familiar with and it works every time is Ashampoo Burning Suite. Try the above and see if it works, cuz if it does then you wouldn't need to d/l a free trial of Ashampoo Burning Suite http://www.ashampoo.com/frontend/products/php/product.php?session_langid=2&idstring=0710

It is, you just need the right tools and take it one step at a time and you will be fine.

No, it does not. Do you have more than one HD?

 

Ya he may have disabled it with out realizing it.

 

First I disabled the preboot then I uninstalled the whole program after I manually deleted each snapshot from inside the FDISR program. Then I went and deleted the remaining registry entries.

Program still won't let me have access to the MBR or EXMBR after downloading MBRWORK and MBR.EXE and running under dos. There is something definately inside my MBR now that is screwing things up big time. I ran across a website that talks about a tool that LOCKS the exmbr but don't know about anything locking the whole MBR. I got a program called "drop to dos" and even that with this is still not possible. I wonder if a format will even solve this? And NO I didn't delete anything in the registry that could be causing this.

 

Like Peter I'm a bit confused but if you have a backup - and you want to zero the drive - mbr. You could use Maxtor or other vendor floppies

Like

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...age/DiamondMax Family/Utilities&downloadID=57

 

Greetings Horus37,

Thanks for your interest in our technology. Just to put your mind at ease, the modifications that we put into the MBR are few small. We read your MBR, add less than 50 bytes of assembly code, and write the MBR back to the same location. Our ISR technologies do not lock or hide the MBR or any other part of your bootstrap process. Although we have our pre-boot code that we "JMP" to from the MBR, the actual modifications to your existing bootstrap process are very minimal. This is by design.

-Todd

 

Well the help came a day late. I already nuked my hard drive after talking with Raxco support the previous day about the MBR problem. Even with your mere 50 bytes of assembly code it still injects and thus there's the potential no matter how small the code is to corrupt something. I'm trying to remember if I ever put any programs in this that might have been hiding out in the MBR prior to FDISR install and I don't think so because just a month or so ago I rebuilt the hard drive from scratch so I could have a good hdd to image back to a new external USB. So basically this was a new machine with a new xp home reinstall that was only a few weeks old with no funky software on it but just the native bare bones xp home with comodo FW and avast AV. To me it seems like an uninstall of FDISR caused this MBR problem with such a fresh system I had. I wish I could have taken pictures of the screens to show you what the machine was saying when I was having MBR issues. This computer is a year old and so I doubt it's hardware related.

 

OT - I have just seen a post which mentions Raxco and the Forum we are in is Leapfrog. Are these one and the same thing ? is there only on FD-ISR ?

I have just tried a demo downloaded from Raxco which gave me problems - could not lock ? errors when I started. So I used Acronis to restore and, of course, had to then use the Acronis MBR to fix things - FR-ISR showing up on re boot.

Can Acronis and FD-ISR work together happily ?

 

thanks - I installed FD - had an error message - restored an image made earlier.
when my pc booted the MBR was still the FDISR version so I then restored the
MBR from Acronis.

Unfortunately for me FDISR doesn't work. The error message I get is "unable to create static copy of active snapshot". The machine I'm testing on is due for a format and reinstall - so will try again later.

 

Well I nuked my computer and no more issues with MBR. However I must say that even DBAN had an issue as it was seeing more than one partition that was [..... ] looking like that as an option to nuke below the official hdd partition that was c: fujitsu drive blah blah blah. I could have chosen the other partition to nuke but not sure what would have happened. I could choose the option and actually tabbed down to it to see what it was but it was a nameless partition. Very strange. So now post - nuke my computer is back and I'm pissed because the very next day after I announce my MBR problems and that I'm nuking my puter the FDRISR squad releases a new beta that addresses the MBR issue. HMMMM? With no lipstick and no vaseline I feel like I got bent over. Why not just own up to the idea it might not uninstall as well as one would hope? I 'll get an image of the system this time and see if when I uninstall the program again I get the same errors.
That should have been a warning up front to not try this program without having a backup image first. How many people here have actually fully uninstalled this program and then looked at their mbr after the fact? I bet no one.

 

Horus I made a big mistake of doing off line boot defrags in snapshots other than the Primary (me not thinking) and I screwed my system up as well as Perfect Disk couldn't work correctly after that so I uninstalled Perfect Disk and deleted the secondary snap and uninstalled FD-ISR and my system was fine.

I then reinstalled Perfect Disk and then FD-ISR and everything was well.

 

The more I hear about this product the more concerned I become. Defraging caused problems and the same company makes both products ?

 

Please don't misunderstand. I made the mistake, there was nothing wrong with the programs. All system changes and maitenance I do in the Primary (as of now). Live and learn, I wasn't thinking.

I should not have done a off line boot defrag in anything other than the Primary. It's because I did this what caused the problem because the pagefile is only present in the Primary snapshot.

 

My concern is that the program allowed you to do something wrong.
when I first tried out the program I came to the bit where I was asked if I wanted to make a copy of the MBR to a floppie. How many machines still include this type of drive ?anyway I skipped it and of course when I used Acronis to restore I then had to also use Acronis to restore the MBR. A good program would perhaps make it clear that a copy of the MBR was essential ? Similarly I would expect a warning message if trying to defrag in an improper way.

My problem is I just can't get it to work period. "unable to create static copy of active snapshot"

 

It's not the programs fault. It's human error. When I ran Perfect Disk it was only going to do it's job, but it couldn't have known that there was no pagefile on that snapshot before I attempted to run it. It wasn't a big deal cuz all I had to do was reinstall, but it was something I learned that shouldn't be done in the way that I did it.

If FD asked you about making a copy of the MBR then it was essentially telling you it was needed. If you don't have a floppy drive you could always use a external one. Unfortunately, you are right a lot of computers don't come with one, especially laptops. I made sure when I ordered my desktop it had a floppy drive.

I'm sure with all the experienced users here something will be figured out.

I replied to your other post about FD.