Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[JanJanowski]

Sorry about that... Yes, was logical not physical... I believe this is correct.. It's reporting as the boot disk...

[fzabkar]

Thanks very much for your feedback.

The very first sector (LBA 0) of the physical disk has indeed been replaced with Seagate's MBR code. In fact this code is embedded in the activate.exe file that is included in the Windows updater executable. The code appears to originate from Acronis.

That said, the partition table is intact, and the 55AA signature bytes are also present. This means that a FIXMBR command from a Vista Recovery Console should restore Microsoft's original code.

FYI, here are the original Microsoft MBRs:

An Examination of the Windows Vista MBR:
http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/VistaMBR.htm#CHS

An Examination of the Windows 7 MBR:
http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/W7MBR.htm#CHS

[JanJanowski]

Spoon feed me one more time... I boot off W7 install disk, goto recovery, and how do a FIXMBR ????

I'm just doublechecking....

By the way, thanks for your patience with this.... Next time... ISO Disk for firmware updates!!! !

[fzabkar]

I don't use Vista, and I've only had to use FIXMBR once on a Windows XP box. However, it appears that Vista does things slightly differently.

Some searching with Google suggests that you need to ...

- boot from a Vista CD
- select "Repair My Computer"
- select Command Prompt
- type "bootrec /fixmbr"

Here are several explanatory articles from Microsoft:

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

What happened to the Recovery Console?
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-happened-to-the-Recovery-Console

What are the system recovery options in Windows Vista?
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-are-the-system-recovery-options-in-Windows-Vis...

[JanJanowski]

Thank you very much for this information...  I understand the sequence I must follow... But there is a new wrinkle in the procedure....

The plot thickens...

I ran the Vista disk, Selected Repair, and Repair doesn't see an OS, Probably because Supermicro is using a custom driver, which was loaded off floppy during the OS install.   There are two of them, Adaptec Ultra 320 SCSI, and Adaptec Ultra 320 Host Raid, and I've forgotten which I installed!!!   I've gone through every version of Supermicro CD (I kept up with updates)  and all Adaptec SCSI versions are the same version, so I have it down to one of two versions...I suspect it's the XP 64 driver I need to load, not because I'm doing XP64, I'm doing Vista 64, but because not doing SCSI Raid... The single boot drive is SE.  but I'm not 100% confidant enough to try it... and I don't want to make things worse with the FIXMBR command on an incorrect driver version.....

This is not the first time I tired to determine which driver was loaded, and found out that the number that Microsoft's Control Panel gives doesn't match the Number of Driver version that the MFG provides.... Even when there is only one version....  So seeing that I can't match version numbers, it's going to be hard for me to select which to 'try'

I did try ignoring the fact that I didn't select an OS to repair, going to Command Prompt, and entered bootrec /fixmbr.   When I did this it instantly replies it fixed it....  !!!!  Instantly!!!   

But on reboot it didn't, still prompts me to hit any key to continue... and then boots normally.... (So why it says it 'fixed' it instantly--I just don't know). I believe this is because it never found the SCSI drive, because of the driver version issue...

Yeah, I'm 'having fun'  but at least I can still boot, after 'hitting any key'.....

Do you think I can try one of the drivers, and if it isn't correct, it will still not see the OS, and give me a chance to try the other?     I'm fast exceeding my comfort factor.....

I do have an Acronis Image file of the drive.. a few months old. Does that re-write sector 0 on physical drive?

[VeganFanatic]

As long as the BIOS can recognize the disk and it does not report SMART failure

try booting your DVD and select repair

[JanJanowski]

As posted before, did so... Repair didn't find an os to repair... (Probably to custom disk driver software)

[VeganFanatic]

If you have another disk, try that if you need to recover files

[fzabkar]

First let me apologise. I see you are using Win7, not Vista. Nevertheless I believe that the procedures are the same.

If you need reassurance that the your choice of driver will be OK, go to the Command Prompt and experiment with commands that don't write to the drive.

For example, type DIR to list the directory contents.

Alternatively, use the DISKPART command to view the partition table:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

AISI, the "select disk", "detail disk", "select partition", "detail partition", "select volume", and "detail volume" subcommands are read-only and should therefore be harmless.

If everything is satisfactory, then you should be OK with bootrec/fixmbr.

[fzabkar]

Just one more thought.

If there is no other solution, you could always restore the original contents of sector 0 by hand with DMDE, using the code at Starman's web site, and making sure not to touch the partition table bytes. There are easier methods, but doing it this way will be safe and secure.