Mbr Error, Formatted hd gone wrong!!!

J

JustinS

New Member
Hello all,

I have been browsing the internet all night and cannot find a solution do my problem and was hoping somebody here could help.

I was working on my roommates computer adding ram and a second harddrive. we decided we would wipe his computer and install vista. After backing up all his info to his external we formatted the second drive with partition magic. Everything worked and then we formatted his first drive and rebooted. bios showed and then i got an mbr error. I put in the vista disk and booted from the dvd drive. Same thing "mbr error"..... Inserted Hirens disk. same error... No matter what i do or where i boot from the first thing that shows is "Mbr Error" Thats it.

So i plugged the slave drive into the master and this time i dont get a MBR Message but it tells me to choose a new location to boot from. Same thing over and over........ even if i do.

I read that i possibly erased all the code from the drive that the bios read. If thats the case is there a way to add the code or reflash the harddrive?

Heres what i have to work with to get this fixed. 1 working labtop, a bundle of dvdr's, 1 thumbdrive and a external harddrive and of course the broke down desktop with the hard drives. Unfortunately buying a new one or sending it in is not an option for me since im completely broke. (thanks economy and lack of school)

Why i didnt boot from the vista disk and do a clean install somebody might wondering well i just got partition magic and i couldn't help but try it.

Please help!!!! And thank you for advise.

-Justin
 
So, if I'm reading correctly...you backed up all the info to the external Drive and formatted both internal Drives? If that's the case, of course you're going to get a boot error, as there's nothing to boot! Did you back up the info or clone the info?

If you did in face clone the disk, does BIOS recognize the external Drive? You mentioned using the Vista DVD, how did you try and fix the boot and what error did you receive?
 
Was the external drive left plugged in? If so that may what is set as the default boot device in the bios. Try unplugging all but the intended drive and try GParted or at least the Vista installer to remove the primary created with PM. Some have reported problems with that software lately.

GParted is a free Linux drive tool with a few MS capable releases to see new prmaries created. The last "platform independent" released is the 0.3.3.0 about half the way down the page at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828

The generall information and instructions for use are easy to follow at http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/generalities/gparted.htm

Hard drives aren't flashed. That's something seen with a bios eprom chip. With a freshly partitioned and even formmatted drive there's still no mbr entries until the installer for the intended OS creates those as well as placing a boot loader and other things on the drive.
 
It just sounds like you (think) your booting to the DVD drive with the Vista install CD/DVD and its really trying to find a harddrive. Hence it cant find a drive or your getting the mbr error. Try changing the boot order to you DVD drive or there should be something at the bottom of the first bios screen that says press such and such key to boot from CD/DVD drive.
 
Well what i backed up to the external was pictures, music, etc.. then formatted the drive where i was prompted to reboot. once i did i received the message "MBR error". I preceded to insert the vista disk and boot from the dvd drive, both manually (hitting esc on hp during startup) and rearranging order in the bios. Still error.

It seems as if the disk drive cannot be read which i know works because i burned a disk prior to format. Not only will the vista disk not read but hiren's and linux knoppix disks wont either. I have reset the bios to default as well with no luck. The bios show i have the dvd drive, both hard drives, floppy and external (if plugged in). I have tried unplugging all usb's leaving only keyboard and power attached but that doesnt help. I know the Hirens disk has a whole bunch of mbr tools to fix this problem but i cant get it to boot up.

Do you think if i borrowed a computer from a friend and hooked the non bootable hard drive up as a slave, then use the Hiren disk to boot into. I should be able to run the tools over the drive that way?

Pc Eye: Thanks for the link. only problem is that would be a cd which i cant boot into. I bet it would fix my problem if i could though.
 
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Sorry for the long posts guys but one last thing i figured i should tell you is that the computer has two dvd/cd drives. The original and a new(er) Sony DL drive. Both i cannot boot from :(
 
You need to go into bios and set first boot device to the Cd drive then put the vista disk in and save and exit the computer should then say press any key to boot from Cd and that's what you do.
 
Right when your computer boots up begin pressing F1, F2 or the Delete key (if I don't know which key it is I start pressing all three). Those are common keys that get you into your BIOS.
 
Another problem you could be seeing there would be the ide cable if both optical drives are ide. I've run smack into that at times where you can open a drive and even read off of disks while not being to boot from them. The flat ribbon ide cables are rather notorious at times for getting dried up and stiff after a lengthy period of time.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys i really appreciate it. As far as the bios go, like i mentioned earlier i have set them to boot from the cd drive also choosing manually from where to boot from, Switching between the two when one wouldnt boot. It Always get a mbr error. I can definitely say that it seems like the drives are not acting correctly. The cable does seem like something i should look into. Out of curiosity does a computer need a working harddrive to boot? I only ask for the process of elimination and what would cause two separate cd drives not to boot or read even though they are shown in the bios? Thanks again guys for all the help.
 
A flaky ide cable with both drives on that one and not seeing one slaved to a hard drive on the primary ide with the second as master on the secondary cable could easily be a cause. Trying a different cable rules out two bad drives fast.

For simply booting off of a disk and not having a hard drive present welcome to the Linux world with live distros running off of remvable media. Those are self contained OSs on a disk there. Otherwise you simply are looking at the initial post tests and then stalling without any mbr or boot loader to take over for the bios. The system then simply stalls.

Besides a bad cable needing replacement the last and unfortunate thought would be a problem with cable socket on the board itself which seems less likely since both drives are being seen at post. An intermittent cable with a degree of signal loss still shows drives to the bios without having normal access and functioning.

Here I simply went for some Antec "Cobra" round cables you can take from one build and use on the next without worry. The surprise is when you order them to see the shipping cost higher then the actual retail price! $9.99-$14.95 = cable $14.95 S&H :eek:
 
Something to understand about a computer system. Your hard drive is permanent storage. RAM is called primary storage and it is volatile, meaning when you turn your computer off all the data loaded in RAM is gone (unless it is saved to your hard drive).

If your hard drive is not working when you turn your computer on there is nothing to load into RAM. Operating system software must be stored in permanent storage (your hard drive) or there won't be anything to load into the random access memory.

Perhaps you should try buying new cables for your hard drives and optical drives. They aren't very expensive. Be sure you take electro static shock precautions before and when opening and working inside your computer case.
 
On a system only seeing one optical dirve you could point to the drive as well as the cable being bad. But when dealing with two drives and nether working the cable is the more obvious.

One thing used here when booting from an optical disk is simply pressing the F8 at the first post screen to bring up the boot device menu seen on many boards. That allows you to select a particular drive seen in that catagory for a one time session. It also saves on trips into the bios back and forth.
 
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