To repair the boot sector by fixing the master boot record, there is no doubt, you will have to be
technically minded to proceed. You can sometimes fix the boot sector of a hard drive and your
computer will magically start as normal.
Your computer may continually restart, sometimes load the Windows logo screen, or even just have a
black screen. There are a number of symptoms that occur when you have a damaged boot sector such
as the master boot record.
What is a boot sector of a hard drive?
Your hard drive is split into small sectors and the first of these is the boot sector. It is the most important
and is obviously accessed first when the computer first boots up. If your hard drive is not partitioned it
will have a Volume Boot Record.
What is the master boot record (MBR)?
The Bios looks for a boot sector of your hard drive. If the hard drive has a partition it will go to the
Master Boot Record. This tells BIOS about your partition table and where the operating system is that
you want to boot up.
What can damage the Master Boot Record in the Boot Sector?
Having problems when installing Operating Systems can damaged the master boot record. Stopping half
way through installation is the most common cause.
Changing the Windows Registry entries.
Getting a virus that infects the MBR. Many viruses are built to attack the MBR.
What you will need to Repair the master boot record (MBR) of a hard drive
An original Full Version Windows XP. The one you used to originally put Windows on your computer. An
OEM version may not have this option, it depends on the company it came from. ( Dell, Acer, HP, etc)
You will need to know the administrator password for your Windows installation.
How to repair the master boot record (MBR of a hard drive manually (quicker)
Put your original Windows XP CD into the cd drive of your computer. If your PC cannot enter Windows,
or your Windows has problems, this CD can help!
Restart your computer and hopefully it will come up and say press any key to boot from the cd.
So therefore you must press any key on your keyboard to start from the cd.
If this does not come up you need to enter your bios and change the boot order or sequence. See How
to get into Your BIOS and change settings.
A blue screen will appear and you are on your way..
You may need to press F8 to agree to the Windows Setup agreement.
After that the setup options will appear (see screen shot below).
Do not press ENTER as it will start installing Windows from scratch and you will loose all of your data on
your hard drive.
Press the letter R on your keyboard to enter the Recovery Console.
When Recovery Console starts you will have to enter the number that corresponds with the installation
you want to repair. For example if you have only one Windows installed on your computer then you
would press the number one key. If you have two operating systems on your computer and you want to
repair the second one then press 2.
Enter your Administrator password for that windows installation. You must enter an admin password
here and if you do not, you cannot continue.
At the Recovery Console command prompt, type fixmbr.
You will be asked to confirm that you want to do this by pressing the Y key for yes.
Now your Master Boot record will be fixed.
Now if that did not work you can also repair the Boot sector by following the same steps but typing
fixboot instead of fixmbr.