How would I repair the master boot record with knoppix?

**Ripshaft** · 02-13-2005, 09:18 PM

My friend's computer (running 2k pro) is having some lovely problems right now; I dont know what he did to it but it refuses to go into the recovery console, and wont boot normally. In Knoppix I can see that his files are still intact, so it seems it could be that the master boot record is corrupt. Though I'm no stranger to unix, I've never had to run a fdisk or fixmbr equivalent command on them... simply because they just dont have those problems... ever. So, how would I fix his harddrive through the console or otherwise in Knoppix? I'm stumped, and he needs those files.

Oh yeah, and it didnt recognise the wireless card, so he's without internet atm.

**raj1478** · 02-15-2005, 09:25 AM

Originally Posted by Ripshaft

My friend's computer (running 2k pro) is having some lovely problems right now; I dont know what he did to it but it refuses to go into the recovery console, and wont boot normally. In Knoppix I can see that his files are still intact, so it seems it could be that the master boot record is corrupt. Though I'm no stranger to unix, I've never had to run a fdisk or fixmbr equivalent command on them... simply because they just dont have those problems... ever. So, how would I fix his harddrive through the console or otherwise in Knoppix? I'm stumped, and he needs those files.

Oh yeah, and it didnt recognise the wireless card, so he's without internet atm.

Can you post the error message you are getting?

From within linux you can run "fdisk -l /dev/hda" (assuming XP is installed on hda), then check to see system-id of partition on which XP is installed - it should be FAT32/VFAT or NTFS like it. If it is something like "HIDDEN FAT32/VFAT or NTFS" then just run "fdiks /dev/hda" the change the system id of the partition back to original.

Post the results....Good Luck..

**Ripshaft** · 02-16-2005, 01:05 AM

Well, none of those worked (could not open/not found/cant write errors), however oddly enough, through some miracle I recieved a different result once I tried to restart the computer again without knoppix. I thought the messages were a little weird, and looked at the bios settings again to see if anything was funky there. Previously everything looked perfectly fine, though now the master wasnt detected, so I entered in all the info needed and tried to restart again, and wouldn't you know it, it worked. It's still running notoriously slow and making the occasional weird noises that sound like something's very close to being fried, but it works well enough for him to back up all his data in case anything like this happens again.

Of course, knowing his luck I'll be back there very soon with a similar problem.

Ah well, thanks for the help anyways, just thought I'd follow up on that one.