Restoring Master Boot Record

Factual Questions
1

In this thread, I described the problem. I got a lot of good suggestions, but none of them worked.

After a crash a few days ago that would not let me boot into Win XP SP3 Home at all, I finally got the system back working. It is fine except for one goofy problem can’t solve.

The first boot each morning loads some of my startup programs, but then the screen freezes completely. If I shut down by holding the start button on the box, and then start it again, it then loads, and everything works perfectly.

However, if I try to do a Restart, it comes back up and freezes. If I shut down again with the button and restart, once again it works OK.

I’ve tried everything I and others can think of, including cleaning the Registry with Eusing and CCleaner.

I have Macrium Reflect and create a new image every month. When I could mot boot before, I tried booting from the CD it made before I fixed things, but that would not work.

Anyhow, I got the latest version today. I do have an image from a couple months ago, but don’t want to restore to that, as have made a lot of changes since.

It does have a feature whereby i can restore just the Master Boot Record from the previous image. It explains how to do it, but not what the possible side effects might be.

It also offers a choice of the boot record as it was at the last image, or a clean Win boot record.

What are the ramifications of doing this, and concerning the problem I have, which would advisable, if either? As I have everything working as I want now, except for having to boot twice, I don’t want to screw things up even more, but if restoring the master boot record might fix things, need advice.

Thanks

2

If Windows is booting to the stage that it is, the Master Boot Record is not your problem. If the MBR were an issue, you’d be getting an immediate failure at every boot.

3

As Quartz says, if you boot to Windows at all, then the MBR is not your issue. If you have multiple OSes installed, and you see options to boot into all OSes at boot time, then the MBR is not your issue.

Have you tried booting into safe mode? If you can boot to safe mode successfully, there’s a problem with some driver or program/process being launched at startup. If you can’t boot to safe mode, there’s a registry/driver/windows corruption.

If you want to play with the MBR, the best tool is Easy BCD:

ETA: And from the other other thread, if you get Acronis True Image (and backup often) I guarantee this will be the last time you’ll need restore help.

ETA2: I just read your other thread referenced in the OP. Will respond there. BigT in the other thread is right, that just because it boots into safe mode doesn’t mean it’s not a hardware issue (as all drivers don’t load in safe mode).

4

Thanks, xash and Quartz for that info. Hopes that the MBR might be the culprit are dashed, but at least don’t have to mess with that.

Yes, I can get into Safe Mode all right, but when I close that, the computer reboots right back into the stupid freeze mode, so have to turn off, wait, restart and everything is fine.

Only the one OS. So, if it is a Registry driver, where the heck do I find that, and/or replace it? if I put in the Win disk and try a Repair, might that fix it? I am leery of trying anything MS has, but worth a try, perhaps.

I still can’t understand why it freezes the first time I boot, but works with no problem the second time I turn it off and back on. If it were a driver, would not the problem persist no matter how many times I turn it back on?

No matter how many times I turn it off and back on during the day, it always works the first time. However, when I turn it off at night, the next morning there is the problem again the firrst time.

As I said, I can live with this, but I can’t help but try to find a fix. Maybe I should just keep it on all the time. Lets not get into that discussion. :smiley: