[Tfug] MBR problems

[Keith Davey]

Good Day Bowie,

Thanks for your answer.  I verified that /dev/hda was infact the old NT C:
drive via fdisk before running the command.   I also figured that there
might be a problem beyond the first 512 bytes so I issued the same dd
command this time with a count=5.  That should have put me well into the
data reagon of the disk.  However it is still a no go.  In addition I
cleared the original NTFS partition, and created the nessesary linux
partitions via fdisk. The only other time I have seen anything remotely
similar to this was with a FreeBSD install that had "guessed" the wrong
drive geometry.  The install appeared to go off without a hitch, but the
reboot showed that NO data had actualy been written to the disk.  As I know
the geometry is correct the only other thing I can think of is hardware
failure.   Any further opinions or suggestions are most welcome!

Keith Davey
Storage System Div
IBM Corp.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bowie J. Poag" <bpoag@comcast.net>
To: <tfug@tfug.org>
Cc: <kdavey@gus33.homeip.net>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Tfug] MBR problems


>
> Keith,
>
> 1) From your description, it sounds like your MBR has been cleared, but
the
> first sector of the first available boot device (not necessarrily the
first
> partition) still references NTLDR.  Have a look with Linux fdisk, and
you'll
> see which partition is declared bootable. It has a star next to it. This
one
> is the culprit. Format it, or do as you've done -- just pave it over with
> dd. For a more elegant solution, tell lilo to burn info to both first
sector
> _and_ MBR.
>
> 2) The default boot device may not be /dev/hda. When your system boots and
> goes thru POST, it determines whether or not the device you've declared in
> BIOS is bootable. If it isnt, it usually falls over quietly to whatever
> you've declared as the second  boot device. If you blanketed the suspect
> drive with dd and it still chokes, you may have unsuspectingly bulldozed
the
> wrong drive. :)
>
> 3) Bottom line is, you'll need to fully format whatever partition is the
one
> now declared as bootable on the drive. Full format, not quick. Problem
> solved.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Bowie
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Leo Przybylski" <leo@leosandbox.org>
> To: <tfug@tfug.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 9:00 AM
> Subject: Re: [Tfug] MBR problems
>
>
> > Keith,
> >
> > Looks like you just cleared the MBR, but what if the problem isn't in
> > the MBR? Was the drive partitioned when NT was installed on it? Probably
> > all the partition information is lost now that the MBR is wiped out, but
> > I'd check anyway. If the partition information is still there, perhaps
> > the MBR wasn't wiped out afterall.
> >
> > One last thing you might try. Have you tried low-level format yet? This
> > should zero out the entire drive. If there was ever a hint of an NTLDR
> > before, there won't be after low-level format, right?
> >
> > -Leo Przybylski
> > http://foopan.leosandbox.org
> > http://grow.arizona.edu
> >
> > Keith Davey wrote:
> >
> > >Hi Gang,
> > >
> > >I am trying to convert an ageing win2k box over to linux after the
win2k
> > >system crashed with NTLDR missing.  However after what apears to have
> been
> > >a succesfull install of linux, a reboot still gives me nothing but:
> > >
> > >NTLDR Missing
> > >
> > >I tried to correct this by issuing  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512
> > >count=1
> > >
> > >But even after this I still get NTLDR Missing.
> > >
> > >Any clues as to how I might clear this error?
> > >
> > >Keith Davey
> > >Storage Systems Div
> > >IBM Corp
> > >
> > >_______________________________________________
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> > >tfug@tfug.org
> > >http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug
> > >
> > >
> >
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>