19 replies to this topic

[gfreed]

I was using Gtub4dos to make a flash drive bootable. Now when i boot my system from the HARD DRIVE i get a strange error
Try (hd0'0):NTFS5:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'1):FAT32:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'2):NTFS5:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'3):INVAL OR NUL
Can not find GRLDR
Press space bar to hold screen, any other key to load previous MBR...

Anyone have an idea what this is?

Thanks

[steve6375]

I was using Gtub4dos to make a flash drive bootable. Now when i boot my system i get a strange error
Try (hd0'0):NTFS5:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'1):FAT32:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'2):NTFS5:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'3):INVAL OR NUL
Can not find GRLDR
Press space bar to hold screen, any other key to load previous MBR...

Anyone have an idea what this is?

Thanks

What did you use to partition and format the USB drive? Can you see the file under another OS?
It sounds like a corrupt formatted drive?

[maanu]

I was using Gtub4dos to make a flash drive bootable. Now when i boot my system i get a strange error
Try (hd0'0):NTFS5:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'1):FAT32:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'2):NTFS5:No GRLDR
Try (hd0'3):INVAL OR NUL
Can not find GRLDR
Press space bar to hold screen, any other key to load previous MBR...

Anyone have an idea what this is?

Thanks

>how did u format ur flash drive ?
>which version of g4d ?
>can ur system GENERALLY boot from ur same flash drive ?

[gfreed]

I did the following:

http://www.hiren.inf...tcd-on-usb-disk

On the step where you sellect the hd i probably sellected the wrong one.

My flash drive does boot any machine i put it in.

Everything was working ok till i did this.

Grub4Dos installed something, can i uninstall it?

I'm kind of lost here!

I found on this site another person who had the exact same problem i had: http://www.boot-land...opic=4678&st=10

I don't understand how thay resolved the issue.

Thanks for responding

[tinybit]

You might have forgotten to copy the GRLDR file onto the root directory of your USB drive.

Another note. Grubinst v1.1 includes very old technique and is apt to fail. At least you should try the triple MBR (search this board). But now the developer, Bean123, has just designed a new approach you may have a look and try:

http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=7932

Hopefully you will no longer encounter any failure with this new installation method.

[gfreed]

You might have forgotten to copy the GRLDR file onto the root directory of your USB drive.

Another note. Grubinst v1.1 includes very old technique and is apt to fail. At least you should try the triple MBR (search this board). But now the developer, Bean123, has just designed a new approach you may have a look and try:

http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=7932

Hopefully you will no longer encounter any failure with this new installation method.

My usb drive is ok, its my computers hard drive thats messed up! Trying to figure out why my hard drive in my laptop is giving errors.

thanks

[maanu]

My usb drive is ok, its my computers hard drive thats messed up! Trying to figure out why my hard drive in my laptop is giving errors.

thanks

Hard drive ? u mean attached hdd drive ? what is it have to do with usb boot anyway?

use fbinst as suggested by tinybit ,it ll HOPEFULLY solve this problem.
@ tinybit

sir , bean has released v 1.2 at chinese site , which as far as i could understand from the posts there, is very stable release.

[gfreed]

Ok,this is where i,m at now. I copied GRLDR & menu.lst my laptops hard drive root directory. Now my laptop when it starts asks me if i want to start my computer using different sources. I wanted my flash memory stick to do this ad it does. I can boot any computer off my USB flash drive with no problem. I didn't want my laptop to be doing this though.

It now asks if i want to boot from my hard disk or from a Hirem's cd or load up mini xp. How do i back this back out! I now understand that the master boot record has been changed to look at grldr and menu.lst. I guess either the mbr needs to be reset or edited or we can reprogram either the grldr \ menu.lst. But there must be away to back this grub4dos back out. I'm getting closer to a solution though. I've been searching the net and there are lots of folks who never figured out what happened or how to fix it. At least its working the way it was intended to work! I just don't need this on my laptop!

thanks

[gfreed]

Hard drive ? u mean attached hdd drive ? what is it have to do with usb boot anyway?

use fbinst as suggested by tinybit ,it ll HOPEFULLY solve this problem.
@ tinybit

sir , bean has released v 1.2 at chinese site , which as far as i could understand from the posts there, is very stable release.

Now it works perfectly, just on the wrong device. My laptop hard drive got changed so when i boot my laptop it asks me what source do i want to boot from. I never intended to make changes to my laptop 's hard drive. I wanted to make my usb flash drive bootable and it is now bootable. I don't need my laptop acting like my flash drive though!

[was_jaclaz]

@gfreed

What happened:

• you wrote by mistake the grldr.mbr code to the MBR (and hidden sectors) of your hard disk (instead of on the USB stick or, better, additionally to it)
• you did not copy the grldr file to the root of your hard disk
• you did copy the grldr file to root of your stick

Thus:

• your USB stick has a MBR that calls grldr (and grldr is found) OK
• your hard disk has a MBR that calls grldr but grldr is NOT on the hard disk (and obviously the copy on the USB stick cannot be seen by it) NOT OK

All you need to do is boot from the USB stick and copy grldr from the root of the USB stick to the root of your hard disk.

Alternatively, if you give some details on what OS you normally run on your hard disk and how many hard disks you have, I can provide you commands to boot from the USB stick and load from it your current OS, and from it repair the MBR.

Typically:

title boot Vista on Hard Disk from USB stick
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map --hook
root (hd0,0)
chainloader /bootmgr

title boot XP on Hard Disk from USB stick
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map --hook
root (hd0,0)
chainloader /ntldr

jaclaz

[gfreed]

@gfreed

What happened:

• you wrote by mistake the grldr.mbr code to the MBR (and hidden sectors) of your hard disk (instead of on the USB stick or, better, additionally to it)
• you did not copy the grldr file to the root of your hard disk
• you did copy the grldr file to root of your stick

Thus:

• your USB stick has a MBR that calls grldr (and grldr is found) OK
• your hard disk has a MBR that calls grldr but grldr is NOT on the hard disk (and obviously the copy on the USB stick cannot be seen by it) NOT OK

All you need to do is boot from the USB stick and copy grldr from the root of the USB stick to the root of your hard disk.

Alternatively, if you give some details on what OS you normally run on your hard disk and how many hard disks you have, I can provide you commands to boot from the USB stick and load from it your current OS, and from it repair the MBR.

Typically:

jaclaz

• you wrote by mistake the grldr.mbr code to the MBR (and hidden sectors) of your hard disk (instead of on the USB stick or, better, additionally to it)
  CORRECT
• you did not copy the grldr file to the root of your hard disk
  CORRECT
• you did copy the grldr file to root of your stick
  CORRECT

Thus:

• your USB stick has a MBR that calls grldr (and grldr is found) OK
  CORRECT
• your hard disk has a MBR that calls grldr but grldr is NOT on the hard disk (and obviously the copy on the USB stick cannot be seen by it) NOT OK
  CORRECT BUT NOW FIXED

Alternatively, if you give some details on what OS you normally run on your hard disk and how many hard disks you have, I can provide you commands to boot from the USB stick and load from it your current OS, and from it repair the MBR.

I'm running WinXp Pro, only one hard drive with two partitions. My memory stick is now bootable and will boot any computer connect to it.

My laptop hard drive however doesn't need Grub4dos on it, serves absolutely no purpose. My goal now is to remove grub4dos from my laptops hard drive. This is actually a good thing in that I'm learning allot about the MBR. The MBR seems to be a real vulnerable file on the hard drive, can it be backed up? Being only 512 bits the MBR must be a binary machine code boot strap. I've been working on computers since the 70's. Back in those days to start a computer you had to finger in a binary code that told the computer how to use the paper tape unit. From there you would use paper tape to tell the computer how to use the magnetic tape unit. The mag tape unit would then load the operating system.

So if my understanding of things is correct the MBR has been modified to look for GRLDR & menu.lst. Wow this is the perfect place to call out viruses! I know there is a backup MBR somewhere because when the initial bootup failed the computer would then default to a backup MBR file. Its going to be interesting to find out how this all works.

THANKS

[was_jaclaz]

Ok.

Boot from your USB stick.

When the grub4dos menu.lst choices appear press "c" to enter command line mode.

Type:

map (hd0) (hd1)

[ENTER]

map (hd1) (hd0)

[ENTER]

map --hook

[ENTER]

The above code fakes that you booted with the hard disk as first device (while you actually booted from the USB stick and this is the first device).

Now type:

root (hd0,0)

[ENTER]

grub4dos should reply something like:

Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07

Now type:

chainloader /ntldr

[ENTER]
(if your OS is NT/2K/XP/2003)

OR:

chainloader /bootmgr

[ENTER]
(if your OS is Vista/2008/Windows7)

grub4dos should reply something like:

Will boot NTLDR from drive=0x80, partition=0x0 (hidden sectors=0x3f)

Now type:

boot

[ENTER]

You should be able to boot your OS normally.

Report if anything is different from the above, and once you have booted in your "normal" OS we'll talk about fixing the MBR.



jaclaz

P.S.:
If you want some more details on the above, read this thread, where the matter is a bit more detailed:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=7563

[gfreed]

Before we start i want to make sure we are on the same page here. I can boot up my computer normally if i select the right option. What Grub4dos did was give me a startup selection. I can boot off my hard drive normally. I can boot off my USB drive and run Hirem's tools, or i can boot off the USB drive starting a program called minixp. So i don't need to fake a startup of the OS. I can remove the USB drive and still start the OS providing i make the correct startup selection. I have the impression I may have given you the idea that i could only boot off my USB drive. I can boot normally.

So do i need to do these steps? I'm being careful because i don't want to completely trash my computer. I house bound and this machine is basically my only means of communication with the outside world.

Thanks for your help

[was_jaclaz]

I can boot normally.

Good , I thought you were still in the situation where you could only search for grldr and it was not found.

So, if I get it correctly:

• you boot your computer with NO usb stick connected
• it boots grldr
• if you choose the "right" choice in menu.lst you can boot normally

So, all you have to do now is to restore the MBR code to the default 2K/XP/2003 one.

The app you need/want is MBRFIX:
http://www.sysint.no...ting/mbrfix.htm
http://www.sysint.no...US/Default.aspx

You want to run it as follows, open a Command Prompt/Console and :

MbrFix /drive 0 listpartitions

(to check that the 0 is the right drive - it should be since you just have one HD)

now run:

MbrFix /drive 0 fixmbr

this will overwrite your current MBR (the grldr.mbr from grub4dos) with the "standard" MBR CODE, keeping intact the MBR DATA (partition table).

BEFORE that, and just to be on the safe side, run:

MbrFix /drive 0 getactivepartition

to make sure you do have an Active partition (it should be partition #1 normally, i.e. your C: drive)

jaclaz

[gfreed]

Good , I thought you were still in the situation where you could only search for grldr and it was not found.

So, if I get it correctly:

• you boot your computer with NO usb stick connected
• it boots grldr
• if you choose the "right" choice in menu.lst you can boot normally

So, all you have to do now is to restore the MBR code to the default 2K/XP/2003 one.

The app you need/want is MBRFIX:
http://www.sysint.no...ting/mbrfix.htm
http://www.sysint.no...US/Default.aspx

You want to run it as follows, open a Command Prompt/Console and :

MbrFix /drive 0 listpartitions

(to check that the 0 is the right drive - it should be since you just have one HD)

now run:

MbrFix /drive 0 fixmbr

this will overwrite your current MBR (the grldr.mbr from grub4dos) with the "standard" MBR CODE, keeping intact the MBR DATA (partition table).

BEFORE that, and just to be on the safe side, run:

MbrFix /drive 0 getactivepartition

to make sure you do have an Active partition (it should be partition #1 normally, i.e. your C: drive)

jaclaz

Your Good!

So, if I get it correctly:

• you boot your computer with NO usb stick connected
  CORRECT
• it boots grldr
  CORRECT
• if you choose the "right" choice in menu.lst you can boot normally
  CORRECT

So, all you have to do now is to restore the MBR code to the default 2K/XP/2003 one.
CORRECT

Ok, i have MBRFIX.EXE ready to go. I don't think i'm running a 64 bit system here so i think i have the right program. Now before i run the "fix" do we need to back up the MBR file? Is there a way to see that the "fix" actually worked? If the MBR gets corrupted is there away to still get into the drive? My goal here is if anything goes wrong i want too be able to have away to get the computer running again. I haven't been able to even find s .mbr file on the computer. Once we fix this i want to figure out what i did to mess this up in the first place!

Thanks for your help and patience, i like what i'm learning here!

[was_jaclaz]

Well, you cannot find the MBR as a file in your computer, since it is not a file.

The MBR is the first sector of the disk and it is "normally" non accessible, as well as the foillowing (usually 62) hidden sectors.
In other words an hard disk first n sectors (usually n=63) are not viewable/accessible from the booted OS.
The OS sees a disk at it's lower "level" as a "Physicaldrive" (that contains the whole disk), but then what it normally accesses is partitions in it, i.e. "LogicalDrives", i.e. starting from the bootsector of the partition.

This is a clear enough representation of the thing:
http://www.ranish.com/part/primer.htm
And here is some detailed explanation:
http://mirror.href.c...r/DiskTerms.htm
http://mirror.href.c.../PartTables.htm

You can use allright MBRFIX to create a backup file of the MBR:

MbrFix /drive <num> savembr <file> Save MBR and partitions to file

If you prefer a GUI app, you could use my little pseudoGUI for it:
http://home.graffiti....net/index.html

Or HDhacker:
http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

As a side note, a "normal" MBR only takes 1st sector (and all relevant DATA, i.e. the partition table is in it).
grldr.mbr the MBR CODE that grub4dos uses, extends beyond the first sector taking some 16 of the 63 hidden sectors, so that if you want to make your hard disk be EXACTLY as it was before you should 00 wipe also some of the hidden sectors, (though there is NO need to do it, and thus we could postpone this thing to an eventual "Lesson 2").

jaclaz

[river~~]

So, all you have to do now is to restore the MBR code to the default 2K/XP/2003 one.
CORRECT

Sorry to interrupt just when you are enjoying the learning experience, but there may be an easier way to put the MBR back how it was. Depending how the grub4dos MBR was written, it sometimes keeps a backup. If so, is it not just a case of getting bootlace to roll back to the previous MBR?

Or of using the Win install CD to repair the MBR?

@jaclaz you know a lot more about this than me, so I expect you will now explain that these are not so good ideas, and it will then be me that is enjoying the learning experience

[was_jaclaz]

Sorry to interrupt just when you are enjoying the learning experience, but there may be an easier way to put the MBR back how it was. Depending how the grub4dos MBR was written, it sometimes keeps a backup. If so, is it not just a case of getting bootlace to roll back to the previous MBR?

Or of using the Win install CD to repair the MBR?

@jaclaz you know a lot more about this than me, so I expect you will now explain that these are not so good ideas, and it will then be me that is enjoying the learning experience

There is an even easier way, get a hex-editor and copy/paste the right code.
But point is that something connected with either the use of grubinst or to a PBCAK didn't go the way it was supposed to do.
We haven't any way to make sure that the backup sector (second sector) has actually been:

• written at all
• written with the proper DATA
• written, written with proper data AND not overwritten/corrupted by any of the other manipulations the user might have made.

The right way is obviously put together the "right" DATA (the ones in current MBR is right as the PC booted allright and partitions are where/how they should be) with the "right" code (standard 2K/XP/2003 MBR).

To do the above there are several methods/apps.

Everyone can use the one he knows better/thinks more fit, but about "easyness" I have some doubts.

Let's compare the option I proposed (remember that we are starting from a booted XP OS):

• Download a small app
• Open a command prompt and run the app
• Reboot to check if everything is allright

to yours:

• find you windows CD (hey, ma' have you seen around one of those round shiny things I used to have on my desk?)
• re-boot
• possibly change BIOS booting order and re-boot again
• wait for the XP CD to boot
• press R for Recovery console
• run Fixmbr
• re-boot to check if everything is allright
• possibly reset BIOS booting order and re-boot again

Expecially "your" step #1 may take on average more time than you would expect .





jaclaz

[gfreed]

We haven't any way to make sure that the backup sector (second sector) has actually been:

Actually there is a backup .MBR file somewhere. If i remove the GRLDR file from the root directory Grub4dos will not load correctly. What happens next is interesting! A countdown starts 5,4,3,2,1,0, "loading backup file" and the computer boots normally. So somewhere there is a backup file. This is a good thing and i would really like to find this file. From what you telling your little application is very safe to run and is probably the best way to go. This computer didn't come with backup discs. You run a recovery program that makes four recovery discs and i have know idea how these work. There are no instructions at all. I assume the discs have a op system with driver but i have never had to use them yet.


I want to learn as much about the booting process as i can.

thanks again

[was_jaclaz]

Actually there is a backup .MBR file somewhere. If i remove the GRLDR file from the root directory Grub4dos will not load correctly. What happens next is interesting! A countdown starts 5,4,3,2,1,0, "loading backup file" and the computer boots normally. So somewhere there is a backup file. This is a good thing and i would really like to find this file.

There is NO backup file.

As river~~ suggested, in some cases during install of the grldr.mbr, a backup of the MBR is made (written on SECOND sector of disk).

What you experienced makes us sure that this second sector was actually written and has the right DATA in it.

So, what you can do is to get HDhacker:
http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/
and access with it:
Physicaldrive 0 (this is your first drive) Specific Sector 2 (this is where grub4dos grldr.mbr stores the backup bootsector)
and save it to a file. (say myMBR.BIN)
Then you have to use HDhacker to:
Load sector from file (the file you just saved)
Write it to Physicaldrive 0 Sector 1

jaclaz