VanLUG Email Archive
James M. Adams (jmadams@jamesm95.freeserve.co.uk)
Fri, 29 Jan 1999 19:37:32 -0000
I read the postings on MBR over the last couple of days, and all I can say
is, never a more appropriate subject. Loaded SUSE linux onto my SCSI hard
disk today and it screwed my LILO boot up sequence in the MBR. I was
getting to the point where I was about expand my solar-panel, when I
realised fdisk /MBR might be what I needed.
I rebooted my system using my Win95 recovery Disk and ran fdisk /MBR. After
that I was ok.
Many thanks
James
-----Original Message-----
From: David & Masako Bellwood <blwd@home.com>
To: Mike Montour <mmontour@iname.com>
Cc: Peter Kim <pckim@interchange.ubc.ca>; Vanlug <vanlug@gweep.bc.ca>
Date: 29 January 1999 04:13
Subject: Re: Accidentally modified MBR...
>Hi Mike, Ryan (& all!)
>
>Many thanks for your suggestions. Yes, I had tried FDISK /MBR (from a
>DOS boot floppy, as recommended by various sources). I finally succeeded
>in installing Linux so that it didn't overwrite my existing partitions,
>but I'm not sure that I haven't simply bypassed the problem.
>Incidentally, (off topic, I suppose), there is a funny bug in OS/2's
>FDISK which makes it impossible ever to re-install OS/2 on a drive if
>you used someone else's utility (such as Partition Magic) to wipe out
>its partitions. The screen shows an almost empty hard drive with
>misaligned information and a warning about the partition table being
>corrupt. But who cares?? Not too many, I think.
>
>Thanks again.
>
>David Bellwood
>
>Mike Montour wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, David & Masako Bellwood wrote:
>>
>> > I have exactly the same problem. I have deleted all partitions,
>> > recreated them and re-deleted using DOS & OS/2 FDISK, Partition Magic
>> > under OS/2 and WIN95, not to mention Norton Disk Doctor. I have a nasty
>> > feeling I'm going to have to re-install DOS 6.22 and have a go at
>> > editing the MBR in hex with Norton's Disk Tools (NU 8.0), but I am not
>> > exactly delighted at the idea. I, too, wait to see if someone can wave
a
>> > magic wand for us. I think I did something stupid with LILO.
>> >
>> > Help!
>>
>> As Ryan mentioned, the (undocumented, I think) DOS command "fdisk /MBR"
>> will create a valid MBR that will allow you to boot Windows. Even if
>> you delete and re-create all partitions then re-install Windows, it still
>> may not boot unless you "fdisk /MBR" it (I consider this a bug in the
>> Windows installation sequence, and it caused me a lot of trouble a
>> couple of years ago).
>>
>> Another way to clean your hard drive is to use a "zero-fill" utility
>> from the drive manufacturer (as someone suggested) or from Linux,
>> use the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX" where X is a,b,c,d
>> depending on which drive you want to erase. USE WITH CAUTION since
>> this will erase ALL your data on that drive. (dd has lots of other
>> options, and it can be used to erase just one sector of your hard
>> drive).
>>
>> To get the dual-booting working again, you need to boot Linux from
>> a floppy, verify or correct your /etc/lilo.conf, then re-run lilo.
>>
>> If there's a need (and not a good solution already somewhere on the
>> Net), I could put together a bootable utility disk to do this sort
>> of repair. Any interest?
>>
>> -Mike <mmontour@iname.com>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Fri 29 Jan 1999 - 11:53:39 PST