"Master Partition Sector Invalid" Please help me fix this...

[Tired of the Bull]

My friends Compaq Presario 1200 Laptop will not boot from the HD. After trying everything (NDD, fdisk, diskedit, Lost and Found, etc...)I finally got a program to at least tell me the problem. It reports that the drive has an Invalid Master Partition Sector, now the problem how can I fix this? Fdisk gives me an error saying the fixed drive 1 is not accessable.

HELP..........

 

[Tired of the Bull]

Help...Please?

 

[maxxy]

Hmmm.. try running this in dos:

fdisk /mbr

MBR = master boot record...
give it a whizz.. if that won't work... R.I.P hd..

Cheers.

 

[Tired of the Bull]

I tried that and after a couple minutes it came back and reported that no changes were made.

 

[Tired of the Bull]

I was able to copy off every file the guy needed. But if run a "dir" it will list files and give sizes perfectly but when it tries to calculate the space remaining on disk it sits there for a very long time and then gives me an error reading drive C: and will let me abort at which time I can change to a different directory. With this type of access I have a hard time giving up on the drive. I've read about software such as VBuster and BPR which claim to rebuild the Partition. ??????????????????????????????????

 

[Nemi]

Sounds as if you may have a corrupted FAT (File allocation table). Fortunately in your case you can still read the drive and get the data. Personally, I would find out what kind of drive it is and see if you can get a diagnostic software from the manufacturer. I know that Maxtor has a diag program as does WD. I'm sure most do. You might have a bad sector or something. A reformat could possibly fix this problem. GL

 

[murdock2525]

SpinRite www.grc.com Trust me

 

[Gustavus]

Mueller's big hardware handbook doesn't mention a master partition sector, but it does describe a "master boot sector" which I suspect is the same thing. Unfortunately it isn't possible to relocate the function of this sector, in other words programs like NDD etc. that can map out bad sectors can't do anything if the MBS is really bad. My suggestion would be to first save everything that is on the HD that is of value since you can still read them -- that will cut your losses -- and then follow maxxi's suggestion to reconstruct the master boot record. If that doesn't work, then contact the HD manufacturer to get two things: their HD diagnostic package (assuming they have one) and their lowlevel format software. If the sector is not bad but merely corrupted, a low level format may restore it but your odds are not too good if restoring the MBR didn't work.
Good luck.

 

[Tired of the Bull]

Gustavus,
That was the terminology use by "Lost and Found" when it scanned the HD.


murdock2525,
I would love to try "Spinrite" but it costs just as much as a new HD.


Nemi,
I've tried to format the drive but it just hangs and the HD is a Toshiba and I dont't see any helpful utilities on thier site.


All,
Could a Virus have done this?

 

[kazuya]

Hi, maybe you can try INSTHELP.EXE. you can find through
yahoo seach. It will reset all the partitions including
the MBR. I already tried this on my harddisks and its very
handy. Thanks to the progammer who built this command.
I'ts also free!
a:\inshelp killdisk 1