Xp with flashing cursor.

[iptech]

Question.... I've used "fixmbr" on many Dells with a PBR, and all I lost was the recovery partition function. Systems booted to the OS fine. Are other brands different?

Rick

You should use Dell's own DSRFIX to preserve the recovery function.

 

[B Trevathan]

If anybody would like some info on Dell's customized Master Boot Record a good site is http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixes.htm

Dsrfix is not a Dell program and is not endorsed by Dell. When used without the /F parameter, it does not write anything to disk and uses fairly straightforward procedures to read selected disk sectors, so should be safe to use.

Also from that site these pages have more good information.:
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/dellmbr.htm
http://www.goodells.net/dellutility/
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/index.htm
http://www.goodells.net/dellutility/custom.htm

Recent Dell computers come with hidden partitions at the front of the disk: a Dell Utility partition and a Dell System Restore (DSR) partition.

By pressing the right keys while the computer is starting up will pause the boot process and display a boot menu from which you can choose to boot from one of these partition instead of the normal Windows partition.

The Dell customized Master Boot Record (MBR) recognizes key combinations such as Ctrl+F11 that allow the computer to give you the partition boot menu. If you write a new MBR using the fixmbr command this writes a normal MBR to the disk that does not recognize these key combinations and would ignore these keys and boot normally (In most cases) and not allow you to boot to the utility or DSR partition.

The Dell customized MBR displays a blue line on a black screen during the boot process. With a normal MBR you will not see this blue line, so this is an indicator that can be used to tell that your Dell system has a functioning customized MBR.

 

[MobileTechie]

I've had the same symptoms for a similar reason just this week - a client running their AV, finding a virus, clicking the Fix button and the machine booting to the blinking cursor. Mine was solved by slaving the drive and running Kaspersky over it which disinfected the boot sector rootkit it found. The machine was a Dell and it booted up perfectly afterwards. I must admit I didn't test the emergency restore partition.

 

[ATTech]

Question.... I've used "fixmbr" on many Dells with a PBR, and all I lost was the recovery partition function. Systems booted to the OS fine. Are other brands different?

Rick

I haven't seen anything other than on Dells. It won't break it, you will just lose the ability to boot to the recovery partition.

@OP
Google 'MbrFix'. It's basically a small, command line drive executable that does for fixmbr that Process Explorer does for task manager. One of the features of this is that you specify the drive to direct the 'fixmbr' command. So you can put it on a bench machine and direct it to a slaved drive. You can also backup and restore mbr's with it, in case you screw something up.

 

[Kitten Kong]

@OP
Google 'MbrFix'. It's basically a small, command line drive executable that does for fixmbr that Process Explorer does for task manager. One of the features of this is that you specify the drive to direct the 'fixmbr' command. So you can put it on a bench machine and direct it to a slaved drive. You can also backup and restore mbr's with it, in case you screw something up.

Thanks for this ATT. I have now added it to my arsenal of tools. I am so glad this one is out of my hair.

 

[gazza]

Yeah some clients want there computers yesterday and will always whinge about payment. I know it is always good in hindsight but you could have tried doing a system restore prior to a date prior to installing MS Security Essentials with ERD. If that did not work test the drive for bad sectors with HD Regenerator to see if the drive had issues. If the drive is clean and you were still stumped then just nuke and pave, get rid of her and charge her extra for it for being painful. As for MS Security Essentials it is a piece of crap!