Backup of MBR (Master Boot Record) and its use
The Master Boot Record (MBR) or sometimes referred as The master partition table (MPT), contains a small program to load and start the active (or bootable) partition from the hard disk drive. The Master boot Record contains information about all four primary partitions.
For a Detailed study about MBR, refer the chapter, “Logical Approach to Disks and OS”, Discussed earlier in this book.
The MBR is located at Absolute Sector 0 or we can say at cylinder 0, head 0, and sector1. It is created on the hard disk drive by executing FDISK.EXE command of DOS.
Why Backup MBR:
MBR allows the boot sector of the active partition to receive the control when the system is started.
After the Power-On Self Test (POST), the BIOS loads the MBR (Master Boot Record) from the Hard Disk into memory and then executes it. First the MBR checks the Hard disk for an Active Partition, then it loads the DOS Boot Record (DBR) into memory and turns control over to the Operating System Boot code and then the Operating System Boot Record code loads the rest of the Operating System into Memory.
There for we can say that if the MBR of the Disk is corrupted, the hard disk is almost dead and the system is completely unable to boot or Run the Operating system. In such condition, all the data stored in the hard disk, becomes inaccessible. Generally The Error Messages are displayed as follows:
“Invalid partition table”
“Error loading operating system”
“Missing operating system"
What Can Be Recovered with the Backup of MBR?
The back up of MBR may help you to get rid of the above Error messages. With the backup, the Following problems can be rectified:
- Error Loading Operating system, due to Corrupted IPL (Initial Program Loader)
- Lost Primary Partition(s)
- Corrupted Partition information
- Invalid Magic Number
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