92rslt1 Posted January 26, 2008 Report Share Posted January 26, 2008 Hello, I am in need of desperate help. I work on computers at work as an IT guy and my knowledge of computers is limited as far as boot sectors and how exactly they work. Heres my problem, I was working on a computer when I thought it would be a good idea to edit the boot menu they had. Its was a pre windows menu that let you choose to backup or restore to a earlier point. It was stored in the MBR or boot sector of the system. Well lets just say I deleted all the options by mistake. The computer still boots fine, but I need to get this boot menu back on the system before something happens to it and I cant restore or back it up. I have several of the same exact computer with the same exact boot setup still on them. My question is how can I back up the boot sector or mbr from the good system and place it on the system which I damaged? The program I erased was smart boot manager 3.7.1If someone could help they would be Very helpful!!Its windows 2000 pro system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 26, 2008 Report Share Posted January 26, 2008 I don't know a lot about W2K but, can you do a system file check http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222471 which should restore any corrupt Windows files?What I do before digging into the depths of operating systems, where it is dangerous for ordinary mortals to go, is make a backup of the whole setup or make an image and work on the image rather than the original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
92rslt1 Posted January 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 Unfortunately, I need the system to be exactly how it was before i started tampering with it. I can pull the boot sector off another system thats the same I just don't know how. The computer boots fine so I dont think the windows fixboot or fixmbr would help me here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike567 Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 I believe your talking about boot.ini?I've edited this before by running knoppix, you can edit it in windows but I'm saying this before because I ran knoppix and I actually saw the boot.ini file.So you could (i would think) run knoppix and duplicate the file in a different name like boot.backup etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
92rslt1 Posted January 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 I believe your talking about boot.ini?I've edited this before by running knoppix, you can edit it in windows but I'm saying this before because I ran knoppix and I actually saw the boot.ini file.So you could (i would think) run knoppix and duplicate the file in a different name like boot.backup etc.Not the boot.ini The whole boot sector of the HD The boot.ini you just need enable view hidden files to see. I need the mbr backed up I think I might try ghosting the whole HD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seshomaru Samma Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 you can back up the MBR with partimage read herejust boot from a linux live CD (knoppix is the best , ubuntu, sidux etc will work as well)install partimage like this:become root (you can skip this stage on some live CDs)su rootupdate the reposapt-get updateinstall the softwareapt-get install partimagerun partimage with this command:partimagelifehacker has an interesting article about partimage , try to google it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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