Recovery of the Master Boot Record?

[Durga Ahlund]

Hi. I have run into what appears to be a fairly serious problem here and am
hoping someone can help me.

I was clean installing win98se on a computer and was using a secondary data
drive D as a temp second drive to access drivers, some utilities and as a
place to make drive images for backup of the primary windows drive C. I was
using power quest's (symantec) drive image and got error #91 saying that a
disk manager was detected on 'drive 1' but not installed and drive image
couldnt load.

The solution posted at the support site said I could erase the disk manager
signature(DMS) in the master boot record (MBR) using 'fdisk /cmbr 1'. I did
this to C and drive image still gave the error. It then said to clear a
secondary drive change the jumper setting on it to primary master. I did
this and plugged the lead master connection of the 80 pin cable into D and
left C unplugged. I then booted from diskette & cleaned the mbr of D. Then
I readjusted the jumpers and put C back as master and the D back as slave. I
rebooted into windows and told drive image to create the image of C into a
directory on D. Drive image rebooted & this time did not give the error.
The image completed then the system rebooted back into windows.

At this point, I went into file explorer and discovered that I could not
longer access D which drive image had just supposedly written it's image
file to! Here's the problem. I used program wrprog to backup the mbr of D
but i was sleeping and wrote it to the same drive i was backing it up for
(ie D) which is now inaccessible*&%.

I went back to drive config I used to clean the mbr of D in the first place
(ie with C unplugged) and tried to boot from diskette to get DOS access as I
had before but the system halted during post as it was unable to recognize
the hard drive at all. When I plug both drives back into their original
config I can read C but D is still inaccessible from DOS or windows. Says
'Invalid media type reading drive D' from DOS.

Is it possible to regain access to D?
Will fdisk /mbr solve the problem? I am uncertain how to ensure the proper
disk is addressed. When both drives are plugged in is the primary master
drive 0 and the secondary slave drive 1 technically? Both drives are using
only a single full partion and fat32.

Awaiting an earliest positive reply. Thank you.
Craig

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Use Resqit from http://invircible.com/

 

[Zvi Netiv]

Hi. I have run into what appears to be a fairly serious problem here and am
hoping someone can help me.

As suggested by Folkert Reinstra, RESQDISK could help in an earlier stage, but I
am afraid that you caused too much damage already for a recovery.

I was clean installing win98se on a computer and was using a secondary data
drive D as a temp second drive to access drivers, some utilities and as a
place to make drive images for backup of the primary windows drive C. I was
using power quest's (symantec) drive image and got error #91 saying that a
disk manager was detected on 'drive 1' but not installed and drive image
couldnt load.

Is it possible that Drive Image detected Disk Manager, without the "a"? DM is a
boot overlay that might have been used when partitioning the drive. The "not
installed" message would then make sense (DM needs to load at boot time in order
to access the partition(s) on the drive).

The solution posted at the support site said I could erase the disk manager
signature(DMS) in the master boot record (MBR) using 'fdisk /cmbr 1'. I did

Obviously the wrong advice.

this to C and drive image still gave the error. It then said to clear a
secondary drive change the jumper setting on it to primary master. I did
this and plugged the lead master connection of the 80 pin cable into D and
left C unplugged. I then booted from diskette & cleaned the mbr of D. Then
I readjusted the jumpers and put C back as master and the D back as slave. I
rebooted into windows and told drive image to create the image of C into a
directory on D. Drive image rebooted & this time did not give the error.
The image completed then the system rebooted back into windows.

Are you sure that Drive Image mirrored the right content? Could you actually
see C: and its directories before starting Drive Image? I suspect that you
cloned a Disk Manager partition with non-standard geometry, onto D:.

At this point, I went into file explorer and discovered that I could not
longer access D which drive image had just supposedly written it's image
file to! Here's the problem. I used program wrprog to backup the mbr of D
but i was sleeping and wrote it to the same drive i was backing it up for
(ie D) which is now inaccessible*&%.

If we are dealing with DM, then the backup of the MBR is as useful as a photo of
your car before having ditched it over a cliff.

I went back to drive config I used to clean the mbr of D in the first place
(ie with C unplugged) and tried to boot from diskette to get DOS access as I
had before but the system halted during post as it was unable to recognize
the hard drive at all. When I plug both drives back into their original
config I can read C but D is still inaccessible from DOS or windows. Says
'Invalid media type reading drive D' from DOS.

Which reinforces my suspicions.

Is it possible to regain access to D?

I doubt, but more testing is required to tell for sure.

Will fdisk /mbr solve the problem?

FDISK /MBR won't do anything, no further harm nor repair. Just neutral.

I am uncertain how to ensure the proper
disk is addressed. When both drives are plugged in is the primary master
drive 0 and the secondary slave drive 1 technically? Both drives are using
only a single full partion and fat32.

Logical drive letters are assigned by the OS, starting with C:, in the order
valid partitions are detected on the installed drives, with primary partitions
assigned first, then the extended ones. The order by which hard drives are
sought is primary master, slave, then secondary master, then slave. A simple
way to tell the partitions drive, its order, and the letter assignment is to run
FDISK /STATUS from the command prompt.

Regards, Zvi