I can't seem to restore my mbr on win2k. I've tried running all the repair options on the win2k install disk, including going into the recovery console and running fixboot and fixmbr. I boot just fine with a floppy that has ntldr and ntdetect.com on it, but can't seem to get those files onto my hardrive. When I try to copy them from the i386 folder on the install cd (in the recovery console) I get "access denied" (which I've come to understand it says any time it can't do something). Searching the forums, I see lots of people recommending booting from a win98 startup disk and doing fdisk /mbr, but I don't have a win98 startup disk (and doesn't this do the same thing as fixmbr in the recovery console?). Any help would be much appreciated.
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can't restore mbr...
- Thread starter yukster
- Start date
You haven't explained your problem. Why do you want a new master boot record (it resolves a very samll number of issues). Please say what isn't working.
PS. has win98 (and almost any other sort of bootdisk you might want) - but more details would enable people to help.
PS. has win98 (and almost any other sort of bootdisk you might want) - but more details would enable people to help.
- Thread starter
- #3
I can't boot without the floppy... sorry, I thought that was the only possible problem that a bad mbr could cause. If I have a floppy with ntldr and ntdetect.com on it in the drive when I start up, it boots into the win2k install on my hard drive just fine. Without the floppy it won't boot. I know that ntldr and ntdetect.com aren't in my mbr but I can't seem to restore them with any of the repair options offered by the win2k cd. Thanks for the tip re I'll go get a win98 boot disk and try the fdisk /mbr idea.
SoulAssassin
IS-IT--Management
Try logging into the recovery console as administrator. Then use the 'set' command (without quotes) to mount the floppy drive. Set /? should produce the proper syntax. Then copy the contents of the floppy to the hard drive and that should fix your problem of not being able to get the files over.
- Thread starter
- #5
Thanks for the suggestion... tried it and, unfortunately, the SET command doesn't work beacause I don't have the right snap-in. And before I go on and start asking about snap-ins, I think I need to ask some basic straightforward questions to make sure I understand all this.
What exactly goes in the MBR? I understand that the MBR is a single sector partition at the first sector on my system drive, but is this where NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM go? Or is something written to the MBR that just tells the BIOS to look for those files on my C drive? It would seem to be the former, as I have copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from a floppy to my C drive at it still won't boot without the floppy.
What is the difference between the fixboot and fixmbr commands? Why would the computer still not find the boot record after running both these commands repeatedly? Is it possible that the mbr just isn't there (that my C partition starts from the first sector)? Wouldn't these commands complain if there wasn't an mbr?
Or maybe there's nothing wrong with my drive at all... maybe it's the BIOS fault (thought I can't see how that would have happened). Here's what is displayed on the screen when the boot from ide0 fails:
RPL-ROM-ADR: 0007 950C 748F
RPL-ROM-IRQ: 5
RPL-ROM-PIO: D400
RPL-ROM-FFC: 5
That last line counts up to 5 slowly and then it says something like boot failed... insert media...etc. Is this what it would do if it couldn't find the mbr or is a sign of some other problem?
Love to hear any and all thoughts...
What exactly goes in the MBR? I understand that the MBR is a single sector partition at the first sector on my system drive, but is this where NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM go? Or is something written to the MBR that just tells the BIOS to look for those files on my C drive? It would seem to be the former, as I have copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from a floppy to my C drive at it still won't boot without the floppy.
What is the difference between the fixboot and fixmbr commands? Why would the computer still not find the boot record after running both these commands repeatedly? Is it possible that the mbr just isn't there (that my C partition starts from the first sector)? Wouldn't these commands complain if there wasn't an mbr?
Or maybe there's nothing wrong with my drive at all... maybe it's the BIOS fault (thought I can't see how that would have happened). Here's what is displayed on the screen when the boot from ide0 fails:
RPL-ROM-ADR: 0007 950C 748F
RPL-ROM-IRQ: 5
RPL-ROM-PIO: D400
RPL-ROM-FFC: 5
That last line counts up to 5 slowly and then it says something like boot failed... insert media...etc. Is this what it would do if it couldn't find the mbr or is a sign of some other problem?
Love to hear any and all thoughts...
I've never seen messages like that at boot up. It does look like a potential bios problem.
The master boot record occupies the first 512 bytes of sector 0 on your hard drive. It basically contains a small program and a partition table which enables the bios to transfer control to the operating system. It doesn't contain any files. When you run fixmbr or fdisk /mbr, a standard windows mbr is written (this doesn't affect the partition table). The boot partition also has a boot sector, where depending on operating system, certain files should reside. So, for win2k, these are ntldr, ntdetect.com & boot.ini. This can become corrupted, and the fixboot command should fix this - so you've done all the right things. The fact that you can boot from a floppy shows that:-
a. the bios can load a floppy master boot record
b. the hard drive partition structure is ok.
It looks like the bios is having trouble loading the mbr from the hard drive (as you said you've copied ntldr & ntdetect.com (boot.ini?) to C: (root of I presume) drive).
Presuming you've got normal 2 IDE connectors - what happens if you connect hard drive to second rather than 1st?
Have you checked your bios settings (something odd's not been set buy mistake - if its got a failsafe setting you can load, might be worth trying that.
Download boot-us from (its a boot manager, but has useful diagnotics) & install it. It may display some useful information when you run it. Also, it has a feature to dump sector 0 to file - which you can then inspect with a hex editor/viewer to see if it looks correct (there are various sites which give you layout of MBR - just use Google to find).
Hope this helps - someone else may have see those boot messages and be able to tell you exactly what they mean.
The master boot record occupies the first 512 bytes of sector 0 on your hard drive. It basically contains a small program and a partition table which enables the bios to transfer control to the operating system. It doesn't contain any files. When you run fixmbr or fdisk /mbr, a standard windows mbr is written (this doesn't affect the partition table). The boot partition also has a boot sector, where depending on operating system, certain files should reside. So, for win2k, these are ntldr, ntdetect.com & boot.ini. This can become corrupted, and the fixboot command should fix this - so you've done all the right things. The fact that you can boot from a floppy shows that:-
a. the bios can load a floppy master boot record
b. the hard drive partition structure is ok.
It looks like the bios is having trouble loading the mbr from the hard drive (as you said you've copied ntldr & ntdetect.com (boot.ini?) to C: (root of I presume) drive).
Presuming you've got normal 2 IDE connectors - what happens if you connect hard drive to second rather than 1st?
Have you checked your bios settings (something odd's not been set buy mistake - if its got a failsafe setting you can load, might be worth trying that.
Download boot-us from (its a boot manager, but has useful diagnotics) & install it. It may display some useful information when you run it. Also, it has a feature to dump sector 0 to file - which you can then inspect with a hex editor/viewer to see if it looks correct (there are various sites which give you layout of MBR - just use Google to find).
Hope this helps - someone else may have see those boot messages and be able to tell you exactly what they mean.
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