corrupt mbr?

I was doing some testing with TI today - I activated the "Startup Recovery Manager" which overwrites the MBR with its boot code - now my boot just hangs and I am not offered the F11 option to load a standalone version of TI. I have been able to load the TI recovery CD and also BartPE to look at the partitions. I would like to just get back to normal - I may have done something wrong but I feel that TI trashed my MBR. Any suggestions would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Bob

 

Hi, btimms

If you have a old 98 boot floppy boot from it to the dos promt _ then type FDISK /MBR then reboot.

If no 98 Boot Floppy:-

Boot from your OS CD>When you get to the insall screen choose>Rapair Windows XP [or W2K] Installion useing the Recovery Console,

Press R>
Then Type 1 [ONE]> Press enter>
Then Enter your Password the one that you installed with> [Administer]
Then at Windows> _
[The Dos Prompt] Type>
FIXMBR>then when it ask if you are sure>Type Y> [you will get a warning here just ignore it]
Press Enter>
Type Exit and REBOOT.


Take Care,
TheQuest

 

Thanks.

I've been searching everywhere around the house for some old dos stuff - actually found 4 floppy disk but no dos.

Found the fixmbr on Google and ran it. Unfortunately I had already tried a WinXP repair before running fixmbr. Setup has finished now and its in an endless resetting loop. I'm tempted to go ahead and try to restore using TI at this point. Fortunately the drive/partitions were all program - and no data. So worse case I can reinstall the programs tomorrow.

Going to go thru anther XP setup first and see what happens.

 

If you are in a loop, also then, with your XP Disk booted to repair, type fixboot and also type after that or with it, fixmbr. The fixboot will re-write the boot.ini file as I understand it. You probably need to do the fixboot as the ini file was likely changed also.

...Allen

 

Well thanks for all the suggestions. Finally tried the TI recover - after about 15 min it told me it would be 1 day and 4 hours to complete. Well guess what - I can reformat and reinstall stuff RELIABLY a lot quicker. So XP is reinstalling a fresh copy now and tomorrow will be for reinstalling apps.

BTW, I really would like a ROCK SOLID backup program that reinstalls the system drive. I'm sure TI works for many - but not for me. I'm framing the receipt as a lesson learned. Can anyone recomend a reliable backup program - such as ghost?

Thanks

 

For anyone interested - my final solution was using TI CD to restore the disk in question. Still wouldn't boot - just hung. Tried to use XP repair to fix but XP CD kept looping. Pulled out W2K CD - got to the console repair screen easier and faster than XP and ran fixmbr and it was fixed. Boots right up like it did several hours ago.

Now - the serious question is - how did the MBR get screwed up. I activated the Startup Recovery Manager and it states in the manual that it overwrites the MBR. I'm not pointing fingers at Acronis - I was nieve using this on my main computer. Bottom line is - what can I do for a reliable backup/restore process of my system disk.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.

Bob

 

you could have used testdisk. it takes about 2 minutes to restore using it.

it's a standalone program or you can use it on ubcd (ultimate boot cd)

www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.html

www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

Hello Bob,

Don't activate the Startup Recovery Manager (SRM)!!!

Seriously though, the SRM feature is really for use on laptops without a floppy disk or CD/DVD drive, thereby allowing you to boot into the Linux based rescue environment. However, this assumes that the hard disk itself hasn't crashed.

The SRM functionality can't be implemented without also creating an Acronis Secure Zone (SZ), which is primarily intended for people who don't have access to a second internal HD or some form of removable media for storing their images. Again, however, this isn't much use if your one and only HD crashes!!

That said, some users like to save their images in a SZ and use its capability to automatically manage the number of incremental images that can be subsequently created. However for better security, I would recommend creating the SZ on a second (preferably external) HD and NOT accepting TI's default option to also activate the SRM. Naturally, this assumes the ability to boot from the TI bootable recue media when one needs to restore the main system partition.

Regards

 

Thanks for all the input. I am backing up to an external HD with an SZ. Since all is working well now I'm going to put together all the recovery tools I need to have handy if something like this happens again.

I guess the fact that the I used the TI image restore in a real emergency and it did what it was supposed to do is a good thing and proof that it works. However, its pretty disturbing even if I do not need to use SRM that the overwriting of my MBR failed totally and put me in such a situation to begin with. I think at the very least there needs to be a way to restore the original MBR.

 

Another question - since I last used TI to do an image backup was when ACR was activated - I want to make sure it is not active when I reload TI for an image backup. Is the best way to do this to delete the SZ and backup only to locations of my choice?

 

As you have alrady reset the MBR via one of the methods advised above, the SRM will no longer be active. However, don't just "delete" the SZ from your external drive as that will leave you with unallocated space. If you wish to get rid of the SZ then "remove" it via Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard and select a partition on the external drive that you wish to return the released space to.

Regards