Damaged MBR Error Message

Damaged MBR Error Message:
MBR is the acronym for Master Boot Record. The master boot record is located in the boot section of your hard drive, which is the first sector on the first platter. When you boot your computer, the master boot record tells the computer’s BIOS (Basic Input Output System) where to find the bootstrap code for the operating system.
So if the MBR is corrupted, the BIOS can’t find the operating system and you can get error messages like the following ones:

• Missing operating system
• Error loading system
• Invalid partition table

Looks pretty scary, doesn’t it?
However, it is usually not that hard to fix a corrupted MBR and usually the rest f the hard drive is just fine and will boot normally once your fix the master boot record.

What Causes Damage to the MBR?

A lot of things can cause damage to the MBR such as viruses designed to corrupt the boot sector.  Some of them copy the original MBR to another file. Others do this by overwriting the MBR with virus code. In fact viruses and malware are one of the most frequent causes but, any file can become corrupted especially files that are accessed as frequently as the MBR.

How to Fix the MBR

The stapes to fix the MBR are slightly different in the different versions of Windows. So I will cover them separately.

Windows XP

1. Insert your XP installation disk in the CD-Rom and reboot the computer
2. When asked, press any key to boot from the CD
3. When you get the Welcome to Setup screen, press “R” to open the repair console
4. Enter your administrator password when prompted
5. At the command prompt, type fixmbr and press enter
6. When a new command prompt appears, type exit
7. Remove your installation CD
8. Restart the computer

Windows Vista

1. Insert your Vista installation disk in the CD-ROM and reboot the computer
2. When asked, press any key to boot from the CD
3. When you get the Install Windows screen, fill in the language and location options and then click Next
4. Click on the Repair your computer option
5. Select the Windows Vista operating system and click Next
6. Enter your administrator password when prompted
7. In the System Recovery Options, select Command Prompt
8. When a command prompt appears, type bootrec.exe and press enter to fix the MBR
9. When a new command prompt appears, type exit
10. Remove your installation CD
11. Click Restart in the System Recovery Options window

Windows 7

1. Insert your Windows 7 installation disk in the CD-ROM and reboot the computer
2. When asked, press any key to boot from the CD
3. When you get the Install Windows screen, fill in the language, Time and Keyboard Input options and then click Next
4. Click on the Repair your computer option
5. In the System Recovery Options, select Command Prompt
6. When a command prompt appears, change to the boot directory
7. Now type bootsect /nt60 SYS and press enter to fix the MBR
8. When a new command prompt appears, type exit
9. Remove your installation CD
10. Reboot the computer