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Master Boot Record keeps messing up

D

duragezic

Lifer
So I turned on my computer last weekend after transporting it back for Thanksgiving break (though I never used it, and I was as always careful when hauling it) and after the BIOS screen it changes to the next black screen with the IDE info and other stuff at the top, then says like Verifying DMI Data or something like that (it would say Boot From Cd below the DMI thing if I were trying to boot from a CD), then says

"DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

I was like, wtf? Where'd my c/boot partition go? So I restart, same thing. Not sure what to do and wondering if my main 250gb hard drive with everything on it is hosed, I'm worried. Put in XP cd, go to recovery console, then type 'fixmbr'. Says I have an invalid or damage partition table/MBR, would you like to repair it? Yes I would (I've had to use fixmbr in the past for something else). Exit, restarts and I don't let it boot from the XP cd and it boots XP normally. All of my hard drive is perfectly intact. Whew I think.

Only to find that EVERYTIME I need to boot my computer (once a day), I get the same error message like it doesn't know where to boot from, and I have to boot from the XP cd to run 'fixmbr' each time.

I tried chkdsk while in the recovery console and after forcing the check, it said there was "some errors" but it never fixed anything.. in fact does it even do that? I thought chkdsk would fix things, but it seems to only scan. Anyway, I'm not sure if that's the problem even, because scandisk can often find and fix minor stuff. I didn't try the bad sector recovery, because other than this MBR/partition table thing at boot, the computer works 100% fine as before.

Anyone know what's happening here and how to fix it?? It's quite annoying to have to use the XP cd and load the setup to get to the recovery console and type 'fixmbr' everytime I boot it...
 
When you are booted into windows go to start, run, type cmd push enter. Then do chkdsk /f /r It will say it can't fix anything and would you like to schedule a scan for next time you restart. Say yes and then try to restart your computer. I'm currious if you will get the same error message from just restarting the computer or if you actually have to turn it off. By using the /r command it will look for bad sectors on your hard drive incase there are some where your mbr is that might explain why you have to fix it everytime. It will take a long time to do this scan with the /r command.
 
I ran the chkdsk /f /r, but I wasn't around when it finished and gave a summary to see if it fixed anything, but I'm not sure if it did anything.

I do get the same error message from restarting. What is weird is that today I turned on computer and got error msg as normal, rebooted with XP cd, ran recovery console and fixmbr. Then I booted to windows since it was "fixed" and did chkdsk /f /r and required a restart. So I restarted and didn't get the error msg so I was convinced it only came on after a cold boot (not a restart) and ran the chkdsk.

Now what I just discovered is that fixmbr wasn't really doing anything! If I restart or boot my computer without a CD-ROM in the drive, it will give me the error message. If I do boot my computer with a CD-ROM (I had XP in while I found this out but it may work with any CD) in the drive, it says

Verifying DMI Pool Data
Boot from CD:

Press any key to boot from the cd


Except that I don't press a key to boot from the cd, so it times out, and boots XP normally! All it needs is a CD in the drive that I ignore and don't boot from (just let the message time out) and it boots without the eror!

WTF is going on?
 
Perhaps it's a HD problem with the time it's taking the HD to spin up? If you have a CD in it has time but without it it tries to boot from the HD and can't. Check your BIOS and see if there's something you can set there. Only thing I can think of.
 
edit: I seemed to have gotten it fixed. While looking in the BIOS for a spin-up time setting (found something like it), I seen a HD Boot Priority setting. For some reason, my slave drive was set to 1st, though the 2nd thing to actually boot from was HDD0 (my master) with my 250gb/master/OS drive second. I switched those and it booted fine without a CD in the drive as I had to before. I'm not sure how they got switched considering I've never touched that setting before, but it seemed to do the trick.

THanks all
 
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