Boot record missing

[hooshang4]

when I turn on the computer it does not boot from C directly as it says no boot record but when I use my Windows 98SE rescue disk it boots only to see the content of C drive nothing else.
There is no autoexec.bak, and I can not see the *.sys files including config.sys or config.win.
Thank you guys and girls in advance for your help and ideas.


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Hooshang

[Paleo Pete]

I'm not sure I understand the problem, a more detailed explanation might help.

From what I can tell, either of two things might help. Boot to a win98 start up disk in both cases. (Not the restore disk, a boot floppy.) with or without CD ROM support should work, either way, you won't need the CD ROM, just the utilities the start up disk loads into the RAMdrive.

Use a space in place of the underscore ( _ ) used here, commands in bold keys to press in .

At the A:\> prompt:

[b]fdisk_/mbr [Enter]

Should rewrite the Master Boot Record. Nothing will appear to happen for a few seconds then you'll get another A:\> prompt. Reboot and try it. If no success boot to the start up disk again.

sys_c: [Enter] will copy the system files to the hard drive and make the drive bootable again. Reboot and try it.

Let us know...



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[hooshang4]

Paleo. I did exactly the way you had explained but I got this message;-->
" the boot record is not updated" which I think is an indication of; 1- The HD is gone bad,2- There is a virus infecting the master boot record and does not allow the boot record to be updated or be replaced from another drive, here it is from A:.
I would like to hear your opinion please.
Thank you all

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Hooshang

[Paleo Pete]

Both are good possibilities, and check BIOS to see if you have Virus Protection turned on. If so turn it off, and try fdisk /mbr again.

Also try booting to an emergency disk you hopefully made for your virus scanner.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[hooshang4]

Thank you, yes I turned off the virus protection before but one question here, I do not know how to virus check using Dos command.I have emergency disk. When I tried to use fdisk in any way I just get error message. I hope to find a solution some how but thank you very much for your early reply.God bless you all.

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Hooshang

[Randy_tx]

If you can see the directories and files when you load using a "rescue" disk, then the hard drive is likely ok.....except for the damage done by what I believe is a boot sector virus. If you have valuable data on the drive (and didnt back it up!!) then you can get a second hard drive to move the DATA to and then do a low level format to clean the drive off. Run a dos virus check to determine if it is a boot sector or cmos virus FIRST!

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I sometimes think like a 286