Rick T said in :
*Vanguard* wrote:

Windows
9x/ME screws up the boot sector for Windows NT/2000/XP but only if
you use Microsoft's dual-boot where you install both within the same
partition.


I was under the impression (and have found from past experience) that
any type of Windows installation stomps all over the MBR.


Rick

Another Windows installation *within* the SAME partition will stomp on
the boot sector for THAT partition. The bootstrap program is fairly
standardized (for Microsoft) and doesn't do much other than to check
which partition is marked active in the partition table, get the
starting sector for that active partition from its entry in the
partition table, and load the boot sector from that active partition to
start loading the operating system in that partition. I actually saw
that because the partition got created, deleted, and recreated but now
it appeared to be unformatted but the install of Windows ME still did
write its own bootstrap program into the boot sector of that separate
primary partition to get Windows ME to load okay. If Windows ME had
been installed in the same partition as Windows XP (which is why I won't
use Microsoft's dual-boot) then its install would step on the boot
sector that used to hold the bootstrap program for Windows XP.

With Windows 9x/ME and Windows NT/2000/XP vying to overwrite the boot
sector if installed in the same partition, you end up with a partition
boot sector that is not usable for both, but the MBR is still okay. You
can use FIXMBR from Windows XP or "FDISK /MBR" from Windows 98 and still
get the same bootstrap program (or near equivalent) loaded in the first
460 bytes of sector 0 (MBR). I had saved and attempted a restore of the
MBR because I wanted exactly the same bootstrap code that Windows XP
might have put there rather than an equivalent but maybe slightly
differently coded version from Windows ME.

My mistake was restoring the MBR from a copy made *before* I did the
partition resize and new partition creation so I put back the old
partition table (i.e., the one prior to the partition changes). So
Powerquest's mbrutild program is not what I really want. It backs up
and restores the entire MBR (sector 0) and, optionally, also track 0
(since some boot managers will extend into the unused portion of track
0). I still want to do the MBR backups but I'd also like the ability to
restore *just* the bootstrap code portion of the MBR (i.e., the first
460 bytes of the saved MBR over the first 460 bytes of sector 0).
MBRwork (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html) won't do it as
it will only install a "standard" bootstrap program, not the one
included in your MBR backup. I can do that with the Windows XP install
CD, select Repair (to get the Recovery Console), and run FIXMBR, or use
a Windows 98/ME bootable floppy and run "FDISK /MBR". I suppose I could
use a hex editor to merge the 460 bytes for the bootstrap program from
the original MBR backup to replace the first 460 bytes of an MBR backup
performed later (so the partition table would be current in the edited
MBR backup file) and then use that edited MBR backup file to restore the
original bootstrap code (along with overwriting the same partition table
atop of itself) but that is way too much work and very error prone.
MBRtool (at http://snipurl.com/6imf) might do it but their description
of the /RBC parameter is vague ("refresh", to me, is not the same as
"restore"). The documentation for MBRwizard
(http://mbrwizard.securityorg.net/) is just a bunch of FAQs rather than
real documentation on how to use the utility and you cannot download the
program to see if its help files are any better at explaining what it
can do without first wasting $25 to buy the unknown utility.

For as critical as the MBR is to the health and configuration of your
system, and considering that it has several distinct parts (bytes) for
various functions (and the same within the partition table), the tools
to manage the MBR are very crappy. Just one more step backwards in
usability would put me back to flipping paddle switches on an old Altair
(http://snipurl.com/70iv) to enter the boot program.

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