Hard Disk Problem

Milambar · 15-02-2009, 06:08

This is probably the wrong place to ask this, if so the mods can feel free to move or delete this as they deem fit, with no hard feelings.

I am hoping someone can come up with a solution to a problem I am having with a recently "reclaimed" hard disk. Let me explain a little about the situation...

I have 2 PC's, one runs as a fileserver/internal webserver for testing webapplications on, and runs Ubuntu Linux. The other PC is a gaming PC, running Windows Vista.

I recently put a larger hard disk in the fileserver, that was a painless operation. I then decided to put the old disk that was in the fileserver, into the gaming PC to give me more disk space. Here is the problem...

The gaming PC now keeps trying to boot off that disk, instead of its own hdd. Meaning I have to keep pressing F11 at boot time, to get the boot menu, and select the right disk to boot from.

I have been into BIOS, but there is no option to select which hard disk to boot from as default, just "HDD Group", "ATAPI CDRom", "Network", and "USB Devices", so thats of no use.

I have downloaded Maxtor's Maxblast utility and deleted all the partitions off the disk, however, it doesn't seem to be able to delete GRUB, which is the one thing it needs to delete in order to stop it trying to boot from it.

Some forums have suggested downloading Maxtor's "PowerMax" software, and create a set of bootable floppies, and do a low-level format. Modern machines don't have floppy disk drives anymore, so that is an avenue I cannot persue.

I have tried a gparted live CD, again, that was unable to remove GRUB from it.

Other forums have said to boot the Vista dvd, and let it fix the MBR. The thing is, the MBR of the main disk doesn't need fixing. I need the MBR of the secondary disk wiping... or something.

So, does anyone have a suggestion?

smee init · 15-02-2009, 07:15

Hi, what type of hdd's are they i.e IDE on same cable sata etc and has any of the drive letters changed, sometimes when reclaimed hdd is installed you can get conflict with drive letters and windows will automaticlly change drive letters as there can only be one C: drive I have had this before.

Milambar · 15-02-2009, 08:17

The main disk is SATA, the second disk, the one I added is EIDE. Yes my PC has both SATA and EIDE interfaces.

No drive letters have changed.

--Edit: Found the solution--

Windows has no tool for this that I could find. The final solution was:
1) Download and burn the cd iso of gparted-live
2) Boot gparted-live
3) Select the drive you wish to work on.
4) Remove all partions.
5) Remove MBR record. <- This is the key step. No windows tool will remove the MBR.
6) Apply changes.
7) Reboot.

And now it boots properly.

smee init · 15-02-2009, 08:40

all good then?

Milambar · 15-02-2009, 08:49

Its a MCP61PM-HM (Basically, a Compaq rebadged Nettle-2).

The PC started off life as a cheap, factory reconditioned, ex-demo unit. It's since recieved more RAM, a faster CPU, better graphics card, better sound card, etc. I guess if I want to keep expanding it, it needs a better motherboard.

Yes, alls good now, thanks.

Raistlin · 15-02-2009, 11:03

For future reference there's an awesome utility within Linux called dd.

You can use it to write zeros to every bit on a drive. This includes the space occupied by the MBR.

Where # is the drive you want to zero:

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hd#

The drive should not be mounted when you start the process, and you should direct 'of' to the drive and not to individual partitions (unless you want to zero a partition of course.....). You'll need to format the drive when you're done and you will lose every piece of data on the drive

15-02-2009, 11:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milambar

Its a MCP61PM-HM (Basically, a Compaq rebadged Nettle-2).

The PC started off life as a cheap, factory reconditioned, ex-demo unit. It's since recieved more RAM, a faster CPU, better graphics card, better sound card, etc. I guess if I want to keep expanding it, it needs a better motherboard.

Yes, alls good now, thanks.

like triggers broom he has had it 20 years its only had 17 new heads and 14 new handles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSmSTpRUeLs

alferret · 15-02-2009, 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

like triggers broom he has had it 20 years its only had 17 new heads and 14 new handles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsmstpruels

lol pmsl

itsbroke · 22-02-2009, 04:23

This brings back memories lol! The problem you experienced was actually common around a decade or so ago when PC's moved over to NTFS. There was in fact a windows utility available then that allowed you to remove all partitions and effectively wipe the disc clean, but the name escapes me, will probably come when it hits my memory reserves lol You would have though had to maka a boot disc, commonly a 3.5' 1.44 floppy but I suspect it would have worked fine copied onto a dos boot CD which is fairly easily obtainable (still). Actually while writing this the old grey matter has had a sudden burst - I think the utility was called delpart.exe

alphadog911 · 22-02-2009, 10:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by itsbroke

This brings back memories lol! The problem you experienced was actually common around a decade or so ago when PC's moved over to NTFS. There was in fact a windows utility available then that allowed you to remove all partitions and effectively wipe the disc clean, but the name escapes me, will probably come when it hits my memory reserves lol You would have though had to maka a boot disc, commonly a 3.5' 1.44 floppy but I suspect it would have worked fine copied onto a dos boot CD which is fairly easily obtainable (still). Actually while writing this the old grey matter has had a sudden burst - I think the utility was called delpart.exe

fdisk is probably what you are thinking about... Ahh the good 'ol days...

22-02-2009, 10:46

fdisk was a dos utility and did not partition to NTFS

Dai · 22-02-2009, 10:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by alphadog911

fdisk is probably what you are thinking about... Ahh the good 'ol days...

fdisk could never cope with removing non-MS boot records IIRC.

try gdisk.. that was always what I used.

itsbroke · 22-02-2009, 11:57

I loved fdisk, made messing about with partitions so much fun! Delpart.exe on the otherhand was used to remove NTFS partitions that fdisk could not cope with. (it could not create them).

22-02-2009, 13:03

fdisk was a nightmare. analyse partition analyse again stuff that im glad I will never use it again