Then someone suggested that it may be a virus in the MBR. HeckControl.cab (Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool). File C:System Volume Informationcatalog.wci00000002.ps2 is infected by Win32:Turla-G Trj,. Sep 23, 2019 Download MBR repair tool for Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 and Windows Server 2016, 2012, 2008, 2003. Go and fix the corrupted MBR on a hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive on which the master boot record is damaged and Windows system cannot start properly.
The Master Boot Record (MBR) is quite possibly the most important piece of data stored on you hard drives or USB flash drives. For those that aren’t exactly sure what the MBR is, it’s basically a small dedicated section of the drive which holds vital information about the disc including its boot information and the layout of all the partitions stored. The MBR area itself is tiny being only a 512 byte sector and is the very first piece of information held right at the beginning of the disc.
If your Master Boot Record becomes corrupted through drive errors or malware etc, it could stop you booting your operating system and in the worst case, cause all the partitions on the drive to be lost because the drive doesn’t have the correct information to identify them. If your system has a standard disc layout, it’s always possible to write a new standard MBR using the Windows XP Recovery Console and the FixMBR command. Or you can use a Windows 7 install disc and select the “Repair your computer” -> Command Prompt option with the Bootrec /fixmbr command which also works on Vista and Windows 8 from the Windows 7 disc.
As the Master Boot Record is such a vital part of your system, it makes sense to have a backup of it just in case the worst happens. And being only 512 bytes in size means it takes up no room at all and can be stored anywhere. This could save hours of frustration trying to recover your files from damaged partitions. So here are 8 free tools that can help you to easily backup and restore your system’s Master Boot Record (MBR) for some extra piece of mind.
1. MBRWizard
MBRwizard is quite a powerful utility and can be helpful in dealing with all sorts of MBR related problems. It was originally designed to repair the damage left on occasion by disk imaging applications such as Symantec Ghost and Acronis True Image, but has matured into a program to repair all sorts of MBR related issues. It also supports GUID Partition Tables, removable media and VMware disks. Backing up and restoring an MBR is easy with the Save and Restore commands with optional use of Vol/Disk.
The odd thing is MBR Wizard’s online documentation doesn’t list the proper commands for saving or restoring the MBR in newer versions of the tool. It was:
MBRWiz /Save=C:MyMBR.Dat
but now it’s:
MBRWiz /Save=MBR /Filename=C:MyMBR.Dat
The same command change is present with MBR restoration. As a result of this change, some of the old MBR Wizard GUI frontend tools (MBRWhisky/Ultimate MBRGUI) won’t work if you update the MBRWiz.exe they come with. The MBRwizard command line version is freeware, and there’s also a shareware version with its own frontend, which might explain the command change, to make the old freeware frontends useless!??
Download MBRWizard!
2. BOOTICE
BOOTICE is more of a general boot sector/MBR editing tool because it has a lot more useful options for advanced users and is quite a powerful tool. There are extra features such as a Grub4DOS menu editor, disk and sector wiping tool, visual BCD editor for NT 6.x systems, edit the MBR/boot sector of IMG, IMG, VHD, VHDX and VMDK images, a partition manager and a disk sector editor. The options to backup and restore the Master Boot Record or the Partition Boot Record (PBR) are via the Process buttons on the Physical Disk tab and you can also install a boot loader from a variety of different choices such as Plop, Grub4DOS, NT 5.x/6.x and BOOTMGR or NTLDR. The 1st sector or as many as you wish can simply be backed up to a file ready to restore later on. As well as the portable GUI, BOOTICE has extensive options available from its command line.
Download BOOTICE
3. MBRtool
MBRtool is a utility that runs in DOS and is designed to backup, restore and verify your hard disk’s Master Boot Record. In addition it can also edit or wipe the partition table and blank or remove the boot code. MBRTool will support the first 4 hard drives present in the system. The program comes with its own bootable media builder where you can write an image to floppy, burn it to a CD or extract the MBRTool executable to be used on the command line or in scripts. Backing up and restoring is menu driven and easy to operate if you enter no arguments or double click the EXE while the more manual commands can be used like any other command line tool.
Download MBRtool
4. HDHacker
HDHacker is a much more user friendly tool with the Windows GUI making it very easy to backup and restore the MBR with a few clicks. It’s able to backup and restore the Maser Boot Record to the physical drive, the boot sector from a logical drive or a specified number of sectors up to a maximum of 16. They can be saved to a file or loaded back in and written to just about any type of drive. Although it will probably look like a mixed up mess in the viewing pane to most people, others may be able to trace problems or even possible boot sector viruses from the information.
Download HDHacker
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30 Comments - Write a Comment
I’ve got a pen drive in MBR format and wish to convert it back to NTFS. Please which of these softwares can do that for me? I don’t care about the files in the drive so I don’t mind formatting. All I Want is to make my pen drive Usable again. Thanks
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syed ali hosseini2 years ago
i rally like those softwares and i respect this website,you actually posted best sofwares ,thank you greats
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I am running on Windows 7, every time I have to repair my MBR for a successfull boot. Is there anything which can permanantly repair my MBR please?
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F.S.A.3 years ago
Some weeks ago I downloaded Bootice without any problems, but some days ago my antivirus deleted it because I tried to unhide a partition, so the antivirus classified it as a suspicious malware operation and deleted it automatically. Unfortunately I didn’t make a backup copy of the program, so I tried to download it again from the link given there, but the server (bbs.ipauly.com) gave me a “500 Internal Server Error”. I tried so many times but that server is still not working. Could you please help me and give me another link? Thank you.
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The link has been updated with an alternative download page.
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F.S.A.3 years ago
Ok, thanks very much, another time you suggested me a very good software. Keep this blog going.
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Is it possible to copy all bootfile from a bootable usb with this? I need to make a pcmcia card bootable with fat16, dos and haven’t found any tool having support for pcmcia in dosmode….
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Don Jwan4 years ago
I did create a restore point just yesterday and also made a full files backup, but MBR was corrupted and when starting windows I only get the “Dell Utility Boot Menu”. Can I restore the MBR even if I don’t have a saved MBR specifically? Thanks – Don
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You can try something like BootIce to create a new MBR although you should make sure you have a full backup of the system first, just in case…
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Yume4 years ago
Can someone tell me how to fix my Dell USB Portable HDD? I try to fix it with HDD Regenerator but it is said “Master Boot Record of this hard drive is Damaged!”. It’s probably because of my HDD fell (but still hang on the USB cable) and hit the other thing when still working on my notebook. Is it possible to fix my HDD now..? I didn’t understand a thing about this, and now I’m googling around hope I can fix my HDD if possible…
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See my (pol098) response to the same question below; even the fiorst sentence is unfortunately still relevant: “Probably too late for the asker of the question, but often a standard MBR is used …”. A good tool for manipulating the MBR is BOOTICE.
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Nick5 years ago
Hi, so I know this is an old thread, but what if I don’t have a backup of my MBR and it is now corrupt and showing as a RAW drive in windows. I dont want to lose the 2TB of data, any ideas. Thanks in advance
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Probably too late for the asker of the question, but often a standard MBR is used, and there are several tools to create one. There are also tools that can help in the case of a non-standard MBR; they require a fair amount of experimenting. Unlike other disc corruption, you can try several possible MBRs without too much risk of damaging the data on the drive (which you can’t get access to until you’ve sorted out the MBR). This reply should be moderately helpful despite not naming the tools (I haven’t done this for a very long time); if you know that something can be done, it’s not too hard to find out how.
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john5 years ago
ok, so if i save a copy of my mbr to c:mbr.dat and then my mbr gets corrupted , i won’t be able to restore my copy of mbr from that location because all data on my drive will be inaccessible without a valid mbr? help, confused now…..i guess i’d better save it to a different drive
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Yes, of course you don’t keep the copy of the MBR on the C: drive, we were just using that as an example location. It’s like backing up your files or hard drive, you store it in another location so you can restore after a severe problem.
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dave5 years ago
There’s always the possibility that you did something which damaged your MBR but did not wipe your backup off the drive.
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thhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaankssssssssssss……………………… i made damage to a friends usb and i owed 3000 rs .u saved meeee.
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bclarkutah5 years ago
Hi Raymond. Which if any of these tools will allow me to move a missing mbr from an older computer to a new computer? For instance, when running a specific program, the program will not continue because it says grldr.mbr is missing. Thanks for your response in advance.
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There’s plenty of these tools mentioned on Hirens Boot CD, you can boot with that and restore a previously saved MBR to your drive.
Trying to use an MBR off another hard drive won’t work because an MBR stores drive and partition data as well, so you’ll screw up the whole partition.
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FiB3R6 years ago
Does the MBR change whenever files are modified on the drive? Just wondering if regular backups should be made.
Thanks.
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No, the MBR only changes when you’re doing something like formatting the drive, creating/deleting partitions or installing Windows.
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nas9 years ago
Thanks for the list, just what I needed. Good job mate!
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Excellent stuff! I have used mbrwizard for years, and am very pleased with this little app, but it’s always nice to keep up with the various technologies. Thanks for your willingness to test and share!
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techniqueal t.11 years ago
this is a fantastic find! MBR definitely needs back up and your list offers a perfect solution.
wonderful post!
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this is great!! thanks
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sam11 years ago
Amazing article as always, you rock Raymond.
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Many thanks Raymond, No matter how much we know – there are always things to learn. This sort of concise explanation is helpful and right on the button for the huge number of members who have little expertise or in-depth knowledge of the vaguaries of harware and software. Thank you from all of them.
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Mojo11 years ago
Thanks for the article, just when I need it.
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very useful tips.. when my MBR gone, i had to reformat my pc .. but now i didn’t need to reformat … just restore the MBR. Thank you.
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ray11 years ago
Great. Thanks..
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How to tell your hard drive MBR is damaged or corrupted
What's the sign of your hard drive MBR is damaged? Except that the apparent error message shows you that master boot record is damaged, there are other clues you can determine whether your MBR is corrupted and needs instant repair! For example, MBR error 1, MBR error 2, MBR error 3...
The problem along with a damaged MBR on a hard drive or some externals is that Windows will no longer work, and it'll fail to find and load the operating system because the master boot record is a key part of your PC's startup system.
What's the best MBR repair tool
In fact, there are many free methods for you to fix and repair the corrupted MBR on any storage device in Windows, among which one of the widely applied MBR repair methods is to use a Command Prompt and run the bootrec.exe /fixmbr command. Even so, it's not a smart choice because they need to search for more tutorials to learn how to create a system repair disk to enter the Windows Automatic Repair mode.
Alternatively, things become much easier when you get acquainted with an MBR repair tool! EaseUS Partition Master comes with a feature called Rebuild MBR. This unique and powerful feature makes it the most popular free MBR repair tool in fixing the damaged master boot record of your hard drive.
Fix MBR on a hard drive, external hard drive and USB flash drive
EaseUS MBR repair software assists you easily in rectifying MBR problems on a hard drive, external hard drive and USB flash drive in Windows operating system and Windows server operating system without any hassle. All you need to do is to download the partition magic software on a normal computer and automatically repair MBR with a few clicks.
MBR repair tool user guide:
Step 1: Create a WinPE bootable disk.
1. Download and launch EaseUS Partition Master on a new PC which runs the same system as yours.
2. Click 'WinPE Creator' on the toolbar. And select to create the bootable disk on a USB drive. If your computer has a CD/DVD drive, you can also create the bootable disk to CD/DVD.
3. Click 'Proceed' to finish the process.
Step 2: Rebuild MBR.
1. Connect the bootable USB or CD/DVD to your PC.
2. Press 'Del' when you are restarting the computer. Boot your computer from 'Removable Devices' or 'CD-ROM Drive'. And then EaseUS Partition Master will run automatically.
3. Right-click the disk whose MBR is damaged. Choose 'Rebuild MBR' to continue.
4. Select the type of MBR with the current operating system. Then, click 'OK'.
5. Click the 'Execute 1 Operation' button at the top-left corner and click 'Apply' to build the MBR. After that, your computer can boot normally again.
By fixing the corrupted MBR on a hard drive with EaseUS MBR repair tool, you can now reconnect the drive back to the original computer and try to boot from it.