Luca said:
I have problem. When I boot my PC, I have only a black screen with a
cursor.
Are we to guess that your host was working before? That this is a new
problem or one that existed ever since you got the host? We are to
guess that you made absolutely no changes to your host between when it
worked and when it failed to subsequently [re]boot?
Where you multibooting before using Microsoft's dual-boot scheme or a
multiboot manager that usurps the bootstrap code area of the MBR (GAG,
grub, IBM boot manager, System Commander, etc)?
I tried the Windows XP CD and enter the Recovery Console. I used
FIXMBR but it claims that the hard disk has a non-standard or invalid
MBR. I executed FIXMBR three times in a row, same error message...
I have cloned the HD (Samsung) to another HD (Western Digital) with
same capacity, run FIXMBR on other hard disk, same error message...
Did you clone just the partition(s)? Or did you clone the entire disk,
including its MBR (master boot record) area (which is never inside a
partition)? Did you run FIXMBR on the 2nd disk before cloning over a
partition to it? I would think a clone program would have to update the
partition tables in the MBR before creating the partition into which it
clones the contents of another partition but I don't know how you did
your cloning.
I tried FIXBOOT too, with no luck.
If FIXMBR is reporting that the MBR is non-standard then something
changed the layout of its content which includes: partition tables (4 of
them), disk signature, and bootstrap code area. Malware can do this.
It rearranges the contents of the MBR so only it knows where are the
partition tables, signature, and bootstrap code. If the malware is
removed, nothing can use those non-standard positioned partition tables
in the MBR.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc977219.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
However, despite the warning, and as I recall, you could still have
FIXMBR lay down its standard layout for the partition tables, signature,
and bootstrap sections in the MBR (which means you won't be able to use
the malware's translation to find where are the existing partitions).
Whether the MBR's layout was corrupted or altered by malware or some
utility, it isn't in a standard layout that FIXMBR understands or that
most 3rd party utilities would understand.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/266745
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058
When prompted, did you tell FIXMBR to go ahead and overwrite its
standard structure (i.e., did you force a rewrite of the MBR)? Did you
load the Recovery Console mode from the hard disk or by using the
installation CD? If you used the install CD, is it as the same service
pack level as your installed instance of Windows?