software able to rewrite or recompile a haywire MBR on a usb HDD?

[xsilver]

Acronis director suite among others is able to do it but only for fixed drives i think.

I have an ipod that for some reason has decided to "downgrade" itself to 16gb when in fact it is a 40gb drive.
Haven't been able to find anything that is able to correct the MBR error

 

[xsilver]

bump for the daycrew

basically what I need is something that is able to edit the number of cylinders / heads / sectors on a drive, because it is wrong on a drive I have now
plus it needs USB support

 

[irishScott]

TestDisk. Will do it for you, and saved my a$$ after a failed linux installation screwd my MBR. You need an OS to use it though, so I'd reccomend a knoppix or ubuntu liveCD.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

 

[xsilver]

yeah - tried using it - but for some reason after I re-write the cylinder heads and sectors, it says it needs to reboot for the changes to take effect -- -reboot --- no changes!
what the? --- I was using it in a command prompt box btw, because as I said - its a USB drive (ipod)

or will it work better/properly if I boot in linux?

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: xsilver
yeah - tried using it - but for some reason after I re-write the cylinder heads and sectors, it says it needs to reboot for the changes to take effect -- -reboot --- no changes!
what the? --- I was using it in a command prompt box btw, because as I said - its a USB drive (ipod)

or will it work better/properly if I boot in linux?

Back when I used it I ran it off an ubuntu live CD, but it should work on practically any OS. Also, is it an iPod formatted as an external drive, or just a regular iPod (i.e. no hacks into the HD). I know it detected my external HD when I was using it (USB 2.0 interface). Weird. Probably something to do with the iPod interface. Wish I knew more.

There's a bunch of the stuff on the full "Ultimate Boot CD" that might help as well.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/