Uninstalling BING?

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rproulxmtl
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:59 pm

Uninstalling BING?

Post by rproulxmtl »

I asked this question in April Newsgroup and received an answer that I thought would work. But the issue persists.

I now boot my system using a swappable SSD with 2 fixed hard disks for data and a Photoshop scratch disk. One (or both?) of the hard disks may have been used in the past as multi-OS boot disks with BING. When I switch my SSD to use my other OS the motherboard bios does not always automatically boot from that drive and instead attempts to boot from one of the HDs. No big deal, I just fix that 'disk boot order/boot drive' setting in the bios and all's well.

BUT - When the system tries to boot from one of the HDs I get a 'Bootit EMBR MISSING' message that pops up. I thought I had gotten rid of that already so I went back to my notes: "Boot bing from CD, Go to partition work: view mbr/std mbr/apply. Undo embr on any drive that has that option".

Perhaps I did not understand these instructions. Today I launched Bootit via the CD, went to Partition work, checked all the hard disks for any evidence of an EMBR partition and there none on any of the drives. So why am I still getting that message??

Am I supposed to also select 'View MBR' and then select 'Std MBR' , even if there's no EMBR partition visible, and then press Apply? What will this do to a drive that never had Bootit installed? I just don't want to do something wrong and have to restore those drives from backups.

The reply I got on the Newsgroup was so short and lacking in detail that it has me still wasting time with an issue that should be easy to resolve with clear instructions.

The first Newsgroup response from TeraByte support last April was:

"boot bing, go to partition work, undo embr on any drive that has that option, (if it was installed you'd also go view mbr / std mbr / apply)."

and a followup:

"go to partition work then undo embr on the drives, view mbr/std mbr/appy on hd0."

(Clear) advise on how to resolve this once and for all would be appreciated :-)

Russell
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Uninstalling BING?

Post by Bob Coleman »

rproulxmtl wrote:
Am I supposed to also select 'View MBR' and then select 'Std MBR' , even if there's no EMBR partition visible, and then press Apply?
First, let me admit that I'm not completely sure, but I think the answer is Yes. I think what you are supposed to be getting rid of or changing is a Master Boot Record.

Probably the reason you are getting an error message is that an existing Extended Mater Boot Record is looking for an EMBR partition which you acknowledge is not present.

But, again, let me stress that this is a somewhat educated guess, not something that I thoroughly understand.
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Uninstalling BING?

Post by Brian K »

Russell,

Have you done this at any stage, 'View MBR' and then select 'Std MBR' ?

It is to get rid of BootIt boot code that is looking for an EMBR that doesn't exist on that HD.
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Uninstalling BING?

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Yes, you would still need to reset the MBR code. The current code is trying to find the EMBR. There doesn't need to be an EMBRM partition on the drive for the EMBR (which is not a partition) or the BootIt MBR code to exist on it. The default (standard) MBR code would try to boot the active partition.

When you select the drive, if it still contains an active EMBR, the "Undo EMBR" button will be available under the hard drive selection list. It sounds like you've already done that part.
rproulxmtl
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:59 pm

Re: Uninstalling BING?

Post by rproulxmtl »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:Yes, you would still need to reset the MBR code. The current code is trying to find the EMBR. There doesn't need to be an EMBRM partition on the drive for the EMBR (which is not a partition) or the BootIt MBR code to exist on it. The default (standard) MBR code would try to boot the active partition. When you select the drive, if it still contains an active EMBR, the "Undo EMBR" button will be available under the hard drive selection list. It sounds like you've already done that part.
Yes, I selected "Undo EMBR" in the past, but that's all I did. I did not understand that I also needed to reset the MBR code.
The default (standard) MBR code would try to boot the active partition.
The word 'try' catches my attention. Is this a reasonably safe operation? Its simply a data drive at this point so nothing boots from it.

Thanks,

Russell
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Uninstalling BING?

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Russell,

It's perfectly safe. Usually what happens is that there will be an error reported from the boot sector code (NTLDR not found or Bootmgr not found), depending on whether the active partition was formatted using XP or Vista/Win7. If it's formatted with BIBM there will be a different error message.

Basically, all you are doing is replacing the MBR code that tries to access the EMBR with the standard code that tries to boot the active partition. You'll get an error message in either case and the system won't boot. The error message is displayed when the "try" fails -- it doesn't do anything harmful.
rproulxmtl
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:59 pm

Re: Uninstalling BING?

Post by rproulxmtl »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:Basically, all you are doing is replacing the MBR code that tries to access the EMBR with the standard code that tries to boot the active partition. You'll get an error message in either case and the system won't boot. The error message is displayed when the "try" fails -- it doesn't do anything harmful.
No error message as it's no longer a drive I boot an OS from. Set MBR to Standard and all's well.

Thank you :-)

Russell
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