Win Xp Woes - "mbr Error 1. Press Any Key To Boot From Floppy"

Hi

I’ve had this problem for a while now… When I turn my PC on, it comes to a black screen saying “MBR Error 1 - Press any key to boot from floppy”. For months it was not much bother as within a few hits of the reset button Windows would load. But then it got to a stage where I’d have to hit the reset button more and more. So for the last few months I’ve just been keeping my PC on….

…. I went on holiday in October and switched off while away. It took several hours of hitting the reset to get Windows to load. Then, a few weeks back, I stupidly switched my PC off by accident. This time it took a whole 24 hours to get Windows to load! I reckon at least 300-400 reset presses!

Anyhow, I’m using this as a calling to update to a more modern OS. But seeing as I have got spare hard drives, I would quite like to keep my current OS as is in case I need to come back to it for whatever reason. So I wondered if anyone knows how to fix my problem?

I did try some stuff a while back but none of it worked. This included FIXMBR and FIXBOOT. I’ve got screenshots from the time if they might help? I’ve also got a BSOD from around the time and another screen with various ISOLINUX messages. My memory is hazy as to what I did exactly though.

One other thing… When I went through the 24 hour resets, I went in to BIOS a few times and the OS system HD was not showing in BIOS. TBH, I thought it was dead. I knew it worked mechanically because I could hear it. But I must admit I was pleasantly shocked when Windows loaded after circa 400 resets!!!

Any help very much appreciated.

Cheers

 

Hi there and thanks for the reply... Yes, Windows XP SP3. I'm not sure about the install disc tbh, I'll have to have a hunt around and see if I can find it. Do I need it for diagnostics?

 

You'll need it to repair Windows XP.

 

Thanks Eldon. Does it need to be the original disc? I did an nLite installation back in the day, and know where the nLite disc I made is. Just not sure about the full WinXP disc. Or would it depend on what got taken out with nLite?

 

The WinXP disc needs to be the same as the version installed.
And you'll need the product key.

 

Hi

Well in that case, I can hopefully use my nLited XP installation disc. What do I need to do though?

In the meantime I've been running a few checks HD...

First I ran CHKDSK /R on the drive. Well, actually, I chose C which is one of three partitions on the drive, so I'm not sure if that matters? Anyhow, there were 5 stages. For the first 4 it said file verification completed. The fifth flicked passed so quick I wasn't able to see what it said. But I ended up at a screen which said "The volume is clean. Windows has finished checking the disc."

I also ran some other tests and checks... SMART result seems ok. The HDTune benchmark looks all over the place though. Also, I am just finishing up a HDTune Error Scan and so far it has found 4 damaged sectors. What's weird though is that it is taking an age! Getting towards the 24 hour mark soon and it is still not done. I'm sure it has never taken that long before. I've got results from a 2TB drive I error scanned a while back and that took 5 hours. And it is 4 times larger! So I don't know if the slow error scan signifies a problem or if it is just because it is a different model.

I'm stabbing in the dark a bit tbh, so if anyone more knowledge is able to comment on whether these results point toward or away from the HD being on the way out, that would be fantastic. I'll post the Error scan result when it has finished.

Many many thanks

 

One more pic:

 

Hi TimW

I tried that back when the problem was first happening and it didn't help or fix it unfortunately.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

Thanks, I'll look into that. Some bed time reading

A bit more info in the meantime... The HDTune error scan finished with 4 damaged blocks. The reason it took an age was because it was running at 3.8 MB/sec.

I'm not sure why, but I decided to run another HDTune benchmark:



It struck me how different this was to the one above. It was only later that I noticed the scale and that the maximum transfer rate was 3.8 MB/sec (previously 87.4MB/sec). Is this a sign that the HD is close to dying? Or could something else be causing it?

 

the only way that i know how to fix bad HD sectors is to run spinrite.
https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

there is no try before you buy, but it has worked 2 miracles for me in the past with "dying" hard drives.
if it does find bad sectors, it might take a long time to recover and move the data.
the first miracle was on a friend of the family's computer.
everything was on that one HD, no backup, and the computer would not boot.
desperate times indeed.
so i ran spinrite, it found that bad sector... click click click click.... 2 full days of listening to a clicking hard drive.
when i woke up on the 3rd day and checked the computer, spinrite had finished.
the computer booted normally and everything was there. i said a quick prayer of thanks,
and gave the computer back and taught them how to make backups.

good luck with it.

 

So are you saying harmless' suggestion is not so harmless?!

 

< _ >

it all depends on what people value more, and, of course, what resources one has.
time vs money vs importance of the files on the hard drive.
with his spare hard drives, cloning his hard drive to a spare is one way, but with the bad sectors, the cloning software might cough up a hairball. this happened to me. one bad sector on my hard drive prevented acronis true image from cloning a hard drive. i ran spinrite, it fixed the bad sector ( ie copied the data to a new sector and marked it bad ). then acronis was able to make my image.

i actually know what he is going through. i have an older win xp computer at work that is just for backups. once a week, i turn it on, make the backups, then turn it off. it's been a good 2 years now, where i might have to press the reset button on the computer 3 or 4 times before the computer decides to boot into windows. the computer works perfectly once it boots into windows. i just cross my fingers each time i press the power button that first time. i'm just too lazy to figure out what is wrong with it... besides trying to use an aging computer whose parts are at least 10 years old.

at my work, we are heavily invested in older computers. and i like spinrite because it fits on a floppy drive. and, also, that guy writes all of his programs in assembly language, which, in my mind, makes him a god.

another thought, if he took out that hard drive, attached it to one of them thar usb/sata drive adapters, then hooked it up to a different computer, is the hard drive recognized and are the files there. he could then copy all the files off, except for those 1 or 2 files with bad sectors. if the 2nd computer does not recognize his hard drive, then the bad sectors will need to be fixed before any kind of recovery is possible.

anyway, good luck with it and merry xmas!!

 

The test looks like a dying drive. However, testing a hard drive in Windows can be misleading, because system static can cause problems during the test. If a scheduled event happens at the same time as the test, etc., it can lead to bad results. That said, those test results are as you stated "all over the place". Otherwise, you could try run a test from a boot rescue utility like Hiren's. I keep it around specifically for this and MemTest and also it is possible to run a chkdsk on any connected drive from Hiren's. Smart data looks good for everything but "Power on Time". That one isn't as important as "Reallocated sectors", but the smart number (54) for POT is based on a scale created (100->0) developed using a great wealth of manufacturer testing data.

I have watched a drive head for its final failure over the course of say three years, testing every few months along the way. It's really quite almost like medical information to see it that way. The downward trend of the data is expected in a single test graph due to the locations of sectors being closer or further from the starting point of the test. But when the numbers in general begin to go down and multiple very low sector scores start to appear, that has always meant the end for a drive for me.

Anyway, you may at least want to make sure all your programs are disabled before you run the test or run the test from safe mode. That would be the best way in Windows to make sure you get accurate results. Just be aware that when the drive fails, it is usually very sudden. If it's the rocker arm or pickup head of the drive or motor, it's gg for the data without spending big money. Definitely get anything important off the drive and onto secondary storage ASAP...

 

yup, i'll vouch for that. for me, there have been a few occasions where the hard drive appears perfectly fine one day, and then the next day, it's just dead dead dead.... and you sit there scratching your head in utter disbelief. backups are so important and that the backups are current and are on a completely different and separate physical device.

 

Thanks for the detailed replies - much appreciated

I actually tried this before hitting the forums (I did it during the 24-hour reset marathon because it reached the point where I thought the drive would never boot). The drive did not show up when put into a caddy and plugged into a laptop. Just to eliminate any other reasons for the no-show, I plugged another HD into the caddy and then plugged that into the laptop and it showed fine. I could hear the failing HD working and it sounded fine, which is what gave me the glimmer of hope to keep trying!

Anyhow, I've decided enough is enough and I'm going to make sure I've got everything I need from this drive and then retire it ASAP. I've got a spare, and I want to move on to W7 anyhow. It would have been nice to have this drive working **just in case** I need to go back to it for anything. But never mind, I'll just have to make sure my backing up is very thorough! And just to restate, all of my data is on other physical drives. The only thing I need form this drive is various app settings and the like.

Incidentally, I bought three of these drives when I built the PC and the other two seem just fine to me. They have given zero issues or signs of failure, and when last tested they passed with flying colours. I want to keep using them as I HATE throwing things away unnecessarily... But do you think I should let their age (10 years) do the talking, or their performance and test results (all good)?

Someone mentioned that testing a failing drive will make it fail even sooner, and that certainly would explain why the results were getting worse! I'll stop tests now while I get the rest of the info I need from it. For future reference though, could anyone please confirm if this is just the case with a failing drive? Is it ok to run tests on drives that are old but not failing?

Thanks again for the great help

 

If you ever find yourself in a situation like that and the data on the disk is really important to you, you should never run Spinrite. That 2 days of clicking might as well have pushed the disk over the edge.

 

that's very true, it was a desperate last resort sort of thing... and i got lucky.