Re: Corrupt master boot record? Help!
- From: fuzzmaster <fuzzmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 14:46:04 -0700
I wasn't looking to do a complete wipe and "clean" install. I guess you would
call it a "re-install", where the windows settings are all reset, but the
non-windows files (and partitions) are unchanged. Does that answer your
question?
"Anna" wrote:
.
"fuzzmaster" <fuzzmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:91D6A85B-073C-446E-9B2D-6B39E1983FA2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
OK my machine has 2 hard drives, 1 IDE and 1 SATA. I moved the XP home
install to the new SATA about 4 months ago and have had no problems. The
old
drive (now my secondary) was reformatted. Recently it was getting
sluggish,
however and I wanted to clean out a lot of old junk, so I decided to
reinstall XP (on the new SATA). When I boot to the install CD, before the
install starts, I get a message that there is not enough free space on the
drive to install. No problem, I figure. So I exit out of the install, but
when I try to reboot, the BIOS recognizes the drive but XP won't boot. So
I
run the install on the secondary drive no problem, but when I pull up the
SATA drive in explorer it says it is not formatted(!?!) Now when I try to
run
the XP install on the SATA drive it says half the drive is partitioned and
half is unpartitioned. Previously there was only 1 partition containing
the
whole drive. So I figure the master boot record has been corrupted, so I
enter the repair console and try "fixmbr" which gives me a message
resembling:
"an invalid or nonstandard partition table signature is detected, you will
be prompted whether you want to continue. If you are not having problems
accessing your drives, you should not continue. Writing a new master boot
record to your system partition could damage your partition tables and
cause
your partitions to become inaccessible."
My question is will this "damage my partition tables and cause my
partitions
to become inaccessible"??? Is there a better way to fix this? Would
"fixboot"
work? I REALLY need to get the data off the drive and don't want to
re-format
or re-partition!!! Help!
fuzzmaster:
Your post/query is unclear - at least it's unclear to me.
Let's forget about your secondary PATA HDD for a while, OK?
If I correctly understand you, all you want to do is make a fresh install of
the XP OS onto your SATA HDD, yes? You indicated that "it (the SATA HDD,
yes?) was getting sluggish, however and I wanted to clean out a lot of old
junk, so I decided to reinstall XP (on the new SATA). "
Well if you make a fresh install of the OS obviously all the partitions/data
on the drive will be lost. I'm reasonably certain you understand that,
right? So why are you concerned with "damage (to) my partition tables", a
possibly corrupted MBR, etc., etc.?
But are you *really* wanting to make a fresh install of the OS onto that
SATA HDD or are you "really* interested in a Repair install of the OS
already on that drive?
If you're *really* interested in a fresh install of the XP OS onto that SATA
HDD, why don't you just disconnect your PATA HDD from the system while you
use your XP installation CD to make that fresh install? See what happens
under those circumstances.
But if that's what you *really* don't want to do, perhaps you can clarify
your ultimate objective(s). Or maybe someone else can respond to your query
who has a better understanding than I of your current situation & future
intentions.
Anna
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