Now I have to rewrite a master boot record.

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited July 2011 in Hardware
I just had the problems with my main computer, for which a replacement motherboard will be put in.

But it seems, according to some guy at Seagate recovery, that all the restarting it was doing, and on and offs somehow damaged the master boot record on my secondary hard drive. Lots of files there.

The 250 GB Seagate drive is showing a RAW file format and no file sizes.

I wisely have most of it backed up on other hard drives, but still it'd be nice to get this drive back in working order without a lot of fuss.

Seagate wants $99 for a registration key to its Seagate File Recovery program, which took 6 hours to scan the drive and show me the files are there, but the drive can't read them normally. And the key is needed to get the files written to an external hard drive.:grumble:

Anyone got a key to this Seagate recovery program already, or know of another way to restore the MBR? It was a second drive with no operating system on it, so I can't just do a repair install.

I wonder if my Ubuntu Linux 11.04 CD has anything for this that can get me around this whole $99 nonsense thing.

OR, since there is enough rom on the drive for an OS install, could XP be installed to it without messing up any of the files on it? I don't know, I think it'd have to format the drive which would ruin the plan.

I have to check my primary hard drive, but I'm using my old NF7 computer now, and it has no SATA ports.

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    Presumably you're running Windows XP.

    Boot to the recovery console and go to the drive that's messed up (c:, d:, whatever), then type fixboot and press enter. Then type fixmbr and press enter.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    Yes, XP Home.

    I tried doing what you said, but recovery console only shows the C drive installation of windows. The hard disk with the problem, E drive, does not have an operating system on it. I didn't even have the option to select the E drive.

    Upon reboot it again tried to disk check the E drive but gave the notice of "Corrupt master file table".

    Any other way of doing it?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    Your problems are more serious than a corrupt MBR. Use a data recovery program like Recuva to grab the files you want, then format the drive.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    I got Recuva and tried searching with it on both drives. It finds files on the C drive just fine, but on E it starts the scan and says "Unable to read MFT".

    This is not the optimum situation. And I know the files are there because I opened them from the scan in Seagate File Recovery.

    My main computers C drive better not be messed up too!

    EDIT - got it to scan E, had to check a few boxes. We'll see what happens.
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    1) Is your data worth $99? Pay the fee.

    2) Is your data (and time to replace it) worth less than $99? Reformat the drive (maybe just buy a new one).
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited July 2011
    After about 5 hours last night, I got through the file list and 125 GB worth of files written to an external drive with Recuva. I was surprised to see a lot of files NOT deleted, that had been temporarily stored on the drive and then supposedly wiped out. But they will be gone now.

    All the files were reassigned random names, so it'll take a while to get everything sorted out again. But at least it worked.
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