Page 1 of 2
restore MBR?
Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:45 am
by TotalDataLoss
Hello everyone!
I'm testing IFW right now and have to say it looks good so far.
I'm trying to understand all the in the manual described options regarding the restore of the MBR and i am not really clear about:
1. First Track: This overwrites EVERYTHING so: Bootcode+Partition table+Disk signature - correct me if wrong...
2. Move to Original MBR Entry: Is this a useful Option for a windows machine? Or better not?
3.Is there a way to restore just the MBR?
Have a sunny day!
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 4:26 pm
by TeraByte Support
"TotalDataLoss" wrote in message news:
[email protected]...
Hello everyone!
I'm testing IFW right now and have to say it looks good so far.

I'm trying to understand all the in the manual described options regarding
the restore of the MBR and i am not really clear about:
1. First Track: This overwrites EVERYTHING so: Bootcode+Partition table+Disk
signature - correct me if wrong...
Not the partition table of course.
2. Move to Original MBR Entry: Is this a useful Option for a windows
machine? Or better not?
Can be, that only applies when restoring a single partition, when doing
entire drive backup/restore that's done automatically.
3.Is there a way to restore just the MBR?
You just rebuild the code with fdisk /mbr from dos/win9x, or Various windows
version has an option, but easier to use BootIt, go to partition work/view
mbr then install standard mbr option, apply. If you want to raw backup the
MBR and raw restore it, use the "copy sectors" command in the TBOSDT Pro
versions (1 sector from lba 0).
Have a sunny day!
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:05 pm
by TotalDataLoss
Hi,
What i'm wondering now is:
the Option "Write Standard MBR Code" how is that handled in Win7? Usually Win7 has small 100MB Partition and and then the actual system partition. In my Case i just have C: and no 100MB partition. When i use this Option what is IFW then writing to it as "standard"?
Thanks for your answers so far!
Do you have an idea where i can read more about MBR? I would like to be able to answer questions like is the option "Move to original MBR entry" useful for me by myself. How can i become more educated on this. Via google i only find the very basic stuff like: Bios starts Bootcode which looks up active partition in MPT goes there then Bootsector starts.... I already know this but there is nothing more. Do you have a link or how did you 15 years ago (just wild guessing

) learn this stuff?
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:07 pm
by TeraByte Support(PP)
The MBR code isn't different depending on whether or not the System Reserved partition is used (it's the same both ways). In Settings you can enable the global option (Use New Windows MBR) to make sure the newer MBR code (Vista or later) is used when IFW needs to write it.
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 10:03 pm
by DrTeeth
On Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:05:03 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
TotalDataLoss disturbed my reverie and wrote:
> I would like to be able to answer questions like is the option "Move to original MBR entry" useful for me by myself.
Unfortunately, I have the same issue with the TBU documentation. There
are many places where the documentation says "do 1 to enable and 2 to
disable" a given feature, but does not tell you why you would want to
do either. It is very frustrating.
Many of the options are specific to the Terabyte programs, so if the
info is not in the documentation, it may be found in the KB or by
asking here.
--
Cheers,
DrT
** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 7:44 am
by TotalDataLoss
Ah thanks you!
@Dr.teeth Hm ja the software looks very professional. And the documentation is good compared to many others - BUT you are really right it could give more Information on the subject. Not everyone has beent working with harddrives all his life and knows everything about it.
@all: can someone explain me what the "hidden track" of a harddisk (not the hidden song on a CD

) is? I saw this option (to restore it) in Shadowprotect and am now wondering how and where IFW takes care of it...But first of all i would need to understand what kind of programms would write what kind of info in it..Oh man its SO hard if you want to become a little smarter than the average Joe Computeruser

Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:39 am
by DrTeeth
This
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=280 talks quite a bit about the hidden track (the first 63 sectors).
DrT
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 7:18 pm
by TotalDataLoss
Hi Doctor Teeth:
"This article is to provide information for BootIt BM users who are installing the Fedora distribution of Linux."
Since i neither use Linux nor BootitBM i don't know if that's the right article, despite the fact that a search didn't even founf the word "hidden".
So could your shortly write me what you think is the hidden track? Speaking of NTFS i'm not at all sure that its the first 63 sectors, statet on this site:
http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mb ... R.htm#NTFS
"the first 16 sectors of an NTFS partition are known as the $Boot..."
That doesn't sound hidden at all.
Is it maybe the backup of the Bootrecord which is stored outside the Volume?
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 7:28 pm
by DrTeeth
There's LOTS of hidden stuff on a hard disk. 'Hidden' just means that an OS won't present it to a user.
Re: restore MBR?
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 7:57 pm
by TotalDataLoss
Yes but i'm in search for the meaning of "hidden track" what that means