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UPDATE: How to REVERT from Dynamic to Basic — How to do ‘fixmbr’

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Maybe a better question is: How to revert from Dynamic to Basic type disk when Windows OS is unavailable?

Pete
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Any ideas how to do a fixmbr when Recovery Console is not available?

I converted my hard disk from Basic type to Dynamic. When I rebooted the system responded with an MBR error message (and stopped). Subsequent reboots don’t give the same error, but just a blinking, underline cursor.

I’d like to try fixmbr, but don’t have access to Recovery Console (no XP Install CD on-hand). Any ideas of alternative approaches?

Or maybe you know how to un-do a failed converstion attempt?

Thanks,
Pete

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Clarifications

In reply to UPDATE: How to REVERT from Dynamic to Basic — How to do ‘fixmbr’

Clarifications

Sorry to say, the only way I’ve seen this corrected is with

In reply to UPDATE: How to REVERT from Dynamic to Basic — How to do ‘fixmbr’

a reformat and reinstall. I hope you backed up all your data before this started.

If you haven’t backed up your data, you may wish to try using a live install version of Linux that will run completely from the DVD without installing onto the hard drive, and then closely examine you system and see if you can identify and correct the corrupt files. I suspect the files system may be corrupted, but it may be just a few files.

Earnest is right

In reply to Sorry to say, the only way I’ve seen this corrected is with

you can go from basic to dynamic but from dynamic to basic without losing all the data.

here’s a technet link to dynamic volumes.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/sag_diskconcepts_10.mspx?mfr=true

All respect to Ernest, but there is a better way

In reply to Sorry to say, the only way I’ve seen this corrected is with

This is an easy problem to solve – just do this:

http://www.redlead.co.uk/crump/?p=5

It worked for me and saved me a huge amount of trouble.

Great Article

In reply to All respect to Ernest, but there is a better way

added this to the reference library….

there is an even easier way

In reply to All respect to Ernest, but there is a better way

you dont have to reformat; you can plug the drive in as a slave device, boot from the master and run a fixmbr from the command line and specify the drive:

fixmbr \Device\HardDisk1

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