MBR Error 1 - help please

misle

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
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Last week, I installed a new 3TB drive in my system. In addition, I have 2 other drives, a 1TB (system), and a 320GB.

On Sunday night, I installed some windows updates and rebooted. That's when I started to get the MBR Error 1.

I booted off the install disk to run utilities, but that wouldn't work until I unplugged all other drives (received an error that it wasn't compatible with my version of Windows). Once I unplugged the other drives, I could boot into Win7 no problem, but I still did the utilities to repair, then I re-wrote the MBR.

Plugged the other drives back in, MBR Error 1. :\

So I bought a new SSD, installed Win7 last night. But when I plug my other system drive in (planning to reformat it and use it for storage), it boots off that drive instead. :hmm:

So I then plugged the new 3TB drive in and MBR Error 1. :mad:

Two questions:
How do I boot off my SSD to reformat my old system drive?
Is my 3TB causing all the MBR Error 1 problems?
 

C1

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2008
2,316
77
91
You're doing too many things (ie, making too many changes) and too little analyses.

You probably now have a mess. Try a system restore. Why do you have to mess around with MS updates? I havent had to do an update in any of my systems (desktops and notebooks) in years and they all continue to work super. (I've only had a minor malware glitch on one out of three systems in four years. Follow safe practices such as dont surf in an administrative account, etc.)
 

mlc

Senior member
Jan 22, 2005
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its typically good practice to disconnecte the other hdd's when loading windows on an ssd drive.. then plug them back in...

Assuming you did that.(Sounds like u did).. then you just need to go into the bios, and check in the boot priority setting, to ensure your new ssd drive is 1st in the boot priority order, ahead of the other hdd's in the list..
 

misle

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
3,371
0
76
Yes, the SSD was the only drive connected when I installed the OS.

I'll have to see if I can set priority among the specific hard drives. I know I can say HD/CD/USB boot order. I'll check tonight.
 

misle

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
3,371
0
76
Okay, reordering the Hard Drive boot order worked, so I took care of #1.

The new 3TB drive is still acting funky. Everything works fine when it's not plugged in. Plug it in, boom, MBR Error 1.

Oddly, if I boot into Parted Magic, the drive show up normal and fine. Even passes the tests that can be run. Luckily, I'll be able to get my data off of it, then I'll try re-formatting it in Parted Magic to see if that takes care of the issue.
 

TheELF

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 2012
3,967
720
126
3tb partitions need uefi to work correctly,that's if you have it as one single partition....
For the rest of the mess,the sata ports on your m/b are numbered(for a reason) if you have windows for example on sata port 2 and plug a disk into sata port 1 your m/b tries to boot from sata1(first available sata really) unless ,like you did,you put them in order though your bios.