Troubleshooting - Boot Records

Master Boot Record At startup, the system BIOS on Intel computers looks for a MBR Master Boot Record at Cylinder 0, Head 0, Sector 1 on the hard disk. The MBR contains standard boot code along with a partition table that defines up to four partitions and identifies one as active. The active partition must contain an OS boot record. Boot code - Loads the OS boot record from the active partition Partition Table Partition 1 start end active Partition 2 start end   Partition 3 start end   Partition 4 start end   Boot sector signature: 55 AA The MBR is created during the installation or with FDISK. Windows Boot Record The first sector of the active partition is a OS boot sector. This is created when the partition is formatted. Formatting a diskette with Windows will put this OS boot sector on the diskette.  The BPB BIOS Parameter Block identifies the file system and its characteristics so that files on the root folder can be identified. The boot code finds NTLDR in the root folder of the active partition and runs it. OS boot code BIOS parameter block Boot sector signature: 55 AA     FIXMBR, FIXBOOT, and DISKSAVE  Both the MBR and the OS boot record are critical to your system startup. A virus can potentially corrupt a boot record. If either boot record becomes corrupted, startup the Recovery Console and run FIXMBR to fix the MBR and FIXBOOT to fix the OS boot record. Either may fail if the boot sector signature is incorrect. FIXMBR cannot correct a corrupted partition table. To recovery from partition table corruption, you must use the DISKSAVE utility from the NT Resource Kit. The Resource Kit contains a procedure to make a DOS diskette that includes DISKSAVE. A backup of your complete MBR including the partition table can be stored on the diskette. DISKSAVE can then restore this at a later time if the MBR gets corrupted. Avoid Using the DOS Command Fdisk /mbr Not supported on dynamic disks or GPT disks. If the signature word has been corrupted, the partition table entries are overwritten with zeros. Access to all partitions and logical volumes is lost. NTLDR - NT Loader Once NTLDR runs, it does the following Reads BOOT.INI and displays boot options If original OS is chosen, BOOTSECT.DOS is loaded and run Starts NTDETECT.COM to do the hardware detection Offers choice of harware profiles, if more than one Loads NTOSKRNL.EXE which does the following Initializes drivers Starts WINLOGON.EXE Starts services BOOT.INI The Windows setup program WINNT automatically updates the records in the BOOT.INI file.The BOOT.INI file is an text file and its syntax must be understood if you intend to modify it with a program like Notepad.  If necessary, use MSConfig to modify BOOT.INI.