Why formatting the HD cannot delete MBR entries ? 5

[ylan]

My spare PC (Win98 SE, Pentium 133 ) has 2 HDs ( 500 Meg and 2 Gig , respectively) . I used System Commander v7.05 to manage 2 OS : Win88 SE and Linux 7.2 . I wanted to clean up the 2 HDs completely so I repartitioned and reformatted them both in FAT16 after uninstalling System Commander as required. When I restarted the PC without any bootdisk in the floppy drive, I saw the statement :" Could not run System Commander : missing File ...." and the system froze. My interpretation was that repartition and reformating failed to clear the MBR on the booting HD ( i.e. Win98 SE ) . System Commander must have written something in the MBR . My question is :

_ Is it possible to clear the MBR ? and How ?

_ Can I ruin a HD if I clear the MBR ? ( I know nothing about HDs :-( )

Thanks,

 

[ski]

Start up with the Windows boot floppy inserted, select 'Start without CD-ROM support' from the menu, press Enter, type C: at the A:\> prompt, press Enter, type fdisk /mbr (note the space between fdisk and the /), and press Enter.
This should repair the MBR.

 

[jtarin]

It is possible to restore the MBR with the command "FDISK /MBR", but this is dependent on your HD manufacture. Some use an overlay which needs to be restored with the mfg's specific repair disk. Refer to your mfg's site for info pertaining to this. Here's a link to the MSKB article on "FDISK /MBR".

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...pport/kb/articles/Q69/0/13.ASP&NoWebContent=1

 

[ylan]

Your reference is excellent and very useful. Thank you very much, jtarin , for the great tip !

 

[ylan]

Thanks, ski, for the right-on solution. Everhing is O.k now!

 

[ski]

You are welcome, ylan.
Glad to hear that things are working ok.

 

[ceh4702]

JUST download a utility from the hard drive manufacturer to write zeros to the beginning of the drive. It works even better if you can write zeros to the entire drive. I tried this with an older IBM hard drive and it really helped. I have also used the Western Digital Utility and it worked fine also.

When you are done you have to use fdisk to redo the partitions. Then you have to format the drive.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[ylan]

Thanks, ceh4702 , for your tips which are really precious in dealing with old HDs like mine.