Free Tools for Viewing and Editing
Partition Tables and/or OS Boot Records
|
A NOTE
about Power Quest : |
Get a FREE set of Windows tools by PowerQuest
from the Symantec FTP site for displaying and editing
your Partition Tables and Boot Records... my page here will show
you which files to download:
Partition Info and Partition
Editor for Win 9x/Win NT/Win2k/WinXP.
1.
MBRWizard
2.00 Beta (versions 1.52/1.53
are still available; backup site for
MBRWizard
v. 1.52;
SIMTEL) — Roger
Layton, this tool's author, was offline for some time, but he's been back
up again for months now at his new site!
Please see our NOTE* below; some sites
have tried to sell this software in the past!
We've keept an archive copy of v. 1.52 (MBRWiz
page) (with MD5 sums) if you're interested.
There are executables for Linux, MS-DOS and for all versions of Windows® (Win9x thru XP/2003) available! This program can do much more than PQ's MBRUTIL (see next item); especially since it's not limited to just the first HDD as MBRUTIL is. Here are only some of its functions (Command Prompt style):
MBRWiz - Version 1.52 for Windows XP/2K/PE November 13, 2003
Copyright (c) 2002-2003 Roger Layton http://mbr.bigr.net
Usage: MBRWiz [/option]
/List List MBR Entries
/Disk=# Selects the disk to use. 0 is used if not specified
/Hide=# Hides the Partition number specified by #, or * for all
/Unhide=# Unhides the Partition number specified by #, or * for all
/Active=# Activates the Partition specified by # {See: /BootMenu below!}
/Inactive=# De-activates the Partition number specified by #, or * for all
/Del=# Deletes the partition specified by # {Note: Just from Partition Table!}
/Wipe=# 1=Wipes the MBR, 2-Wipes the first 63 sectors of disk
/Save=x Saves the MBR to filename 'x'
/Restore=x Reads and restores the Disk MBR from filename 'x'
/ShowFile=x Shows contents of an existing MBR backup file named 'x'
/BootMenu Allows user to select an active partition from a menu
{Note: This is simply another form of the /Active command; not a boot manager!}
/Sort Sort MBR Entries by disk location
/IsSorted Returns 0 if MBR partitions are already sorted
/Shutdown=# 1-Forces OS shutdown, 2-Forces OS Reboot
/Result Shows Errorlevel code
[* NOTE: There were at least two web sites illegally trying to sell this program as their own! The copyright notifications were altered by these criminals! So, BE CAREFUL... Do some research before buying any software, and do not become a fool by paying for something you don't have to; and possibly getting a 'buggy' program too.]
2.
Free Copy/Restore MBR Utility from
PowerQuest; now owned by Symantec.
head.zip
(a 448 kb package of four utility programs) is
an excellent utility from PowerQuest because it can both save and
restore all 512-bytes of the MBR sector (that includes your Partition Table)
while even Windows 2000 or XP are still running! This little gem is hidden in
a .zip file as "MBRutil.exe"
along with its DOS version "MBRUTILD.EXE" [
plus a somewhat dangerous utility called "WipeTrk.exe"
which will erase Absolute sectors 1 through 62 (which the PQ 'ReadMe.txt' file
refers to as "sectors 2 through 63" -- they begin counting sectors
with a 1 rather than a 0, so the MBR is sector 1 in their text file). If you
execute WipeTrk.exe with no parameters it
will immediately zero-out every byte of Abs. sectors 1 - 62 without any
warning! ] MBRutil.exe
will display the following when run with no parameters:
MBRUtil Copyright (c) 2002 PowerQuest Corporation
Invalid arguments
Usage:
MBRutil.exe [/?] [/S[H]=<fileName>] [/R[H]=<fileName>]
/S Save MBR (sector 1 only) to <fileName>
/SH Save entire first head to <fileName>
/R Restore MBR (sector 1 only) from <fileName>
/RH Restore entire first head from <fileName>
For example, to save your boot drive's MBR as the
file "MyMBR.bin" you would enter the following at a command prompt (in a DOS box):
mbrutil
/S=MyMBR.bin
To restore (or overwrite -- it won't ask you!) the MBR sector from a saved file,
say "MBR1s.bin," you would simply enter:
mbrutil
/R=MBR1s.bin
(most likely you'd be doing this from a real DOS prompt after booting
from a floppy and using MBRUTILD instead).
Unfortunately, (or actually fortunately for anyone
who mistakenly runs this program) PQ's "WipeTrk.exe" does NOT zero-out
any MBR bytes! So, if you're having a problem with a Partition Table entry which
FDISK refuses to delete, you'll need to use either DELpart
or our own ZAP63:
3.
ZAP63.zip
(just 3kb) is an Assembly program which
uses INT13 to 'zero-out' every byte of the first 63 sectors of any
hard drive you choose.
MD5 sum of ZAP.COM (new version 1.4) = 32b9c9f746b9bb19742980adbde3e4af
(MD5 sum of older version;
v 1.3 = 1f78bd078613b771fc5f00075e89dfd1).
This program is based on the original 'ZAP' utility (which wiped-out 128 sectors; too many sectors in our opinion! So, we made this 63-sector wipe-out version instead). It's ideal for quickly zeroing-out of the MBR plus the next 62 sectors; which may contain old boot overlays, managers or possibly viruses. ( NOTE: There may be some valuable information in those sectors too, such as computer HDD IDs, so examine them first. )
For those who really want to 'start all
over again' though, we recommend spending the time to 'zero-out' every byte
of the whole disk with a program from the drive's manufacturer. You may fix
some "bad sectors" by carrying out that process! For more info on
HDD-wiping, see: our WIPE page.
4.
Sector
Inspector. This
Microsoft® Windows™ Server 2003 Resource Kit Tool will also
work just fine on any Win 2000/XP system. Very useful (and
somewhat easier to use than
Svend's
32-bit "FINDPART getsect" utility for Windows). You can
dump any range of sectors in either text or binary
forms and write those files back to the disks!
Find out how to download SecInspect.exe's install program from this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/reskit/tools/default.mspx
[NOTE: The
reason I haven't said everyone should use this program is this:
Every time I attempt to create a binary backup file of say, my MBR
sector, using its
secinspect -backup
PhysicalDrive0 mbrsect.dsk 0 1
the program attempts to "lock" the drive (which of course I'm using),
then displays a horrible WARNING message saying it couldn't do so, and adds:
"Are you sure you want to continue?"
So, the average person will abort the backup every time; meaning this
utility is of little, or no help at all, for most users! ]
5. DiskProbe — from Microsoft®; if you can find it on your install CD (e.g., WinXP SP2 has it under \SUPPORT\TOOLS), it's sort of like getting a free Disk Editor for Win NT/2000/XP. (Too bad it doesn't understand "Dynamic Disks"!) I suggest skipping whatever long process may be involved in trying to install just DiskProbe from there, and instead: Open the SUPPORT.CAB file and extract the following files into some folder of your choice:
07/21/2001 07:13PM 1,165 dskprobe.cnt 08/17/2001 02:03PM 94,720 dskprobe.exe 07/21/2001 07:13PM 50,501 dskprobe.hlp 07/21/2001 07:13PM 1,748,480 dskprtrb.doc
The .doc file has a large amount of data and illustrations about the layout of system areas on disk drives; I advise you to get a 'second opinion' before making use of anything you read there in a 'critical operation' though, since it might contain errors! With the release of HxD (see below), there's really no need to even consider using DiskProbe!
If you need a Disk Editor to make any manual changes
to your Partition Tables, take this link to my FreeTools review page
about the PhysTechSoft-Disk Editor
(PTS-DE)
If you want to try running it under Windows 9x, please read the CAUTION NOTE
below the download link before doing so!
(Being a 16-bit DOS tool; PTS-DE can not be used under Windows 2000/XP, but that makes it a useful tool for boot diskettes if your Windows computer won't boot-up!) But HxD is the ideal FREE Windows disk editor application:
HxDHxD is a new Hex Editor for editing binary files or hard disk sectors from within Windows 9x, 2000/XP! This makes it the first FREE Disk Editor that can do many of things people purchase the commercial editor WinHex for! HxD is in active development right now, so the author is interested in any bugs you might possibly find and open to suggestions! HxD already has all the basic features you'd want in such an editor: Both Hex and ASCII (including Unicode) search and replace, and will open files, memory locations, hard drives (as either logical or physical) and disk image files too.
TestDisk
(Version 6.8; August 2007).
This gem may amaze you with how quickly it can find
"lost partitions" and restore them as a fully functioning drive! The
sofware basically finds any deleted partitions, then allows you to write the
necessary data into your Partition Table(s) within a few minutes! (Check out
the cool new 'Wiki pages' documentation! Also be sure to read about PhotoRec
- our digital photograph AND NOW many other file-types recovery tool.)
IMPORTANT NEW FEATURE: As of v6.5, TestDisk can now COPY any file (or recurse through whole subfolders) from within a "lost partition" without having to first restore and reboot the computer; ideal for someone who forgot to save some data before deleting a partition and for some odd reason, you still can't access the partition any other way.
We strongly advise you to first run this tool on known good drives, without using any of its write functions while first learning how to use it. If possible, you may also wish to use some discarded drive(s) for experiments in testing all of this tools capabilities! When you are fully confident in how to use TD, recovery operations should be less of a hassle.
Choose from many precompiled executables: TestDisk can run under all Windows™ and DOS (such as after booting up with a Win98 Boot Disk with the DPMI server program; CWSDPMI.EXE that's included in the download), or Linux (there's a static version you can use under almost any Linux OS) operating systems. There's even a binary for MAC OSX too! Apart from these, you may compile from source code for some other OSs.
However, TestDisk will recognize and can recover partitions of at least the following types (check site for all the lastest file systems):
BeFS (BeOS),
BSD disklabel (Free BSD / Open BSD / Net BSD),
CramFS (Compressed File System),
EXT2/EXT3 (Linux),
FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 (DOS or Windows™),
HFS and HFS+, (Hierarchial FS),
JFS (IBM's Journaled FS),
Linux Swap (1 and 2),
Linux Raid (1, 4, 5 and 6),
LVM and LVM2 (Linux Logical Volume Manager),
MAC Partition Map,
Netware NSS,
NTFS (Windows™ NT / 2000 / XP / 2003),
ReiserFS (1 and 2; 3.5 and 3.6),
UFS and UFS2(Sun or BSD),
and XFS (SGI's Journaled FS).
Companies that wish to boot more than one OS from the same computer
often turn to commercial software such as: System Commander 2000
by V
Communications, Partition Magic by
PowerQuest (now owned by
Symantec), Acronis OS Selector 5.0 (previously Boot Wizard)
by Acronis or a
fairly new product called OSL2000
by osloader.com to
replace their standard MBRs.
If you're running a Linux OS on the system, using GRUB
or LILO are viable alternatives
as is the BOOT.INI
file from an existing Windows NT/2000/XP OS. The following are a couple
other FREE alternatives:
The Ranish Partition Manager (very out-dated
now!)
For those who don't require much support, there
are FREE programs, including an interactive MBR which can be obtained
from Mikhail Ranish: the Ranish Partition Manager and Boot Manager
http://www.ranish.com/part/. Download the stable freeware version
2.37.12 (which includes source code), or try his latest program.
Place a floppy in your A:\ drive and run PM's Install.bat
to save all the Partition information from your drive(s) to the floppy! [ Why?
Because the Partition Table data for your particular drive(s) can NEVER be refreshed
or recovered by running an FDISK /MBR command; which simply replaces the MBR
code! ]
Ranish's program, part.exe (in version 2.37.12 or part_cmd.exe
in the newer beta set), is also 'Console' enabled which means it can be used
rather effectively in Batch files too! For the details, open a DOS-Window at
the folder where part.exe exists, then enter: part -? at the prompt
(do NOT use -h as this is a command to HIDE partitions!!).
This is a very nice graphically
enhanced and interactive MBR system called XOSL ( Extended Operating
System Loader ). Unfortunately, its development seems to have been abandoned!
Since this FREE system promoted the Ranish Partition Manager, it appears that
Mikhail Ranish has given it some room on his own site now for downloading:
http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm;
you'll find a link there to the author's own web site.
Real Hard Disk Research
Most of the data
on these pages are the result of my own testing using various versions of FDISK
on real working hard drives which were methodically examined in detail with
various disk editors and other utility software.
Since
I also believe in having multiple sources, especially on technical topics, I've
placed some other web sites here with references to disk drives, the MBR and
OS Boot Records. [But remember to check and
double-check before using any information from the Internet, as subtle errors
exist in many magazines and on web sites.]:
Ray Knight's Home Page
[ Ray's pages are quite informative. He also lists many sources. But I'm sure
he'd agree that without a specific statement, neither of us want you to think
that we've validated all the data on those pages simply because we list
them as references. ]
List of Partition Identifiers for PCs by Andries Brouwer
Detailed listing of almost every different
type of partition that has ever been used on a PC.
( I do however wish that he'd used a different font for the 'identifiers'
rather than the same lower-case letters as his text! ) His second page (titled:
Properties of partition tables) may be confusing to many (including the
way some terms are used), but it does contain some real problems people have
had with different OSs (section 2.8) and large drives (section 2.7) as various
bugs or limits have been encountered in the course
of our ever increasing hard disk sizes!
You can write to me using this: online
reply form. (It opens in a new window.)
MBR and Boot Records Index
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