corrpted boot (MBR?) on macbook-pro after bootcamp

[itdoesnotcomput]

Have Macbook Pro, with 10.6 - all fine until....
I used Bootcamp to set up 10GB partition, then inserted my Windows XP (Home) Disk.
When the I was shown the partition table, the only partition was C: 131GB. So I quitted, and since then on booting I get a black screen with flashing cursor in top left corner. The hard drive is inaccessible - for example it does not appear as a firewire drive, and in the repair disk options offered from my Windows XP setup disk, when I type the “dir” command” for C: I get “an error occurred during directory enumeration”.

Seems like the boot (Master Boot Record as Windows calls it) is corrupted.

From reading threads on different forums I cannot see (or maybe I just cannot understand!) a fix posted anywhere. For example:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/630107/

which was on this forum some months ago.

also:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/639213/
and
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t98888.html


If the boot is corrupted, is there any way to re-instate it without having to reformat the whole drive?

 

[Grannyville7989]

You can repair the MBR pretty easily without having to do a reformat install.

Boot from your Windows XP disc and go through the setup screens until you get the option to press R to go into the Recovery Console.

Choose the Windows installation you wish to fix, which is usually just the one for most people so hit the 1 key and press Enter.

Enter you adminstrator password. If you do not have on, just leave it blank and hit Enter.

Then, type in the command fixmbr. The fixmbr utility will write a master boot record to the hard drive that you're currently using to boot into Windows XP. This will repair any corruption or damage that the master boot record may have.

When that's done, take out your Windows XP disc, type exit and the computer will reboot.

 

[balamw]

If the boot is corrupted, is there any way to re-instate it without having to reformat the whole drive?

Sounds like all you want to do i get back to OS X.

Try this. Reboot your mac holding down the Alt/Option key. This should bring up the boot loader menu where you can choose to select to boot to Mac OS. Then reset your Startup Disk in System Preferences.

NOTE: Mac OS doesn't use a traditional MBR since the disk format is not MBR, but GPT. The Boot Camp components in the firmware enable "legacy BIOS/MBR OSes" to boot and wrap the GPT partitions in a fake MBR partition table.

B

 

[itdoesnotcomput]

You can repair the MBR pretty easily without having to do a reformat install.

Boot from your Windows XP disc and go through the setup screens until you get the option to press R to go into the Recovery Console.

Choose the Windows installation you wish to fix, which is usually just the one for most people so hit the 1 key and press Enter.

Enter you adminstrator password. If you do not have on, just leave it blank and hit Enter.

Then, type in the command fixmbr. The fixmbr utility will write a master boot record to the hard drive that you're currently using to boot into Windows XP. This will repair any corruption or damage that the master boot record may have.

When that's done, take out your Windows XP disc, type exit and the computer will reboot.

Thanks for the idea - the thing is that the Windows installation was intended to be 10GB, but the partition I saw offered was 131GB - so I was worried that FIXMBR would make things even worse. i.e. it would not be fixing the 10GB partition I set up, but some other thing that was not supposed to be there at all.

So, while you were answering I have opted for reformat install, so your suggestions came too late for me.

By the way, I did make a backup using TimeMachine, but we cannot see those files anywhere on the backup disk when I use it on other machines. Are Timemachine backups invisble? So, at the moment it's all confusion, but I am assuming that the backup did not work, and I may end up trying to find a data restoring system for the hard drive. If I want to find all my old files, should I avoid re-installing the whole system, in case it writes over the files I want to restore? And can you recommend how best to restore the files .. or who to go to??

Thanks again for your time and suggestions - both of you

 

[balamw]

Question:

Is your windows XP a "System Restore" disc? Or an OEM/System Builder edition? If so, it may partially be doing what it was designed to do restore a particular PC to factory conditions.

By other machines do you mean other Macs or are you trying to see the Time Machine backup on PCs?

What are you planning to do now? I presume you mean you did a reformat install in Windows so now your system is running Windows only. Right? You may have a hard time getting OS X back on there because now the disk is partitioned MBR and not GPT.

B