Will formating fix a bad boot sector?

[firehawk12]

So, it looks like my HDD has developed a bad boot sector or some such because I cannot boot into Windows. I've done everything related to fixing a boot problem - running chkdsk, using fixboot and fixmbr and even repairing the install, but no go.
What's strange is that I can plug the drive into an enclosure and access the files fine.
My question is - if format the drive, or simply reinstall Windows on top, I suppose, will it be fine? Or is the drive dead?

Right now, I'm ghosting the drive... I'm planning on formatting and restoring the image and hoping that works. But if it won't, I'd like to know before going through the effort.

Merci!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Depends on if it's a corrupt file, or physical damage. If it's a corrupt file, restoring a backup image made from already corrupt files won't help. But a format and fresh install, or restoring an older image might.

 

[USS KG5]

First question that comes to mind is how far the boot gets - if it says "no boot record found" or somesuch but you have a working spinning disc it might well be a corrupt boot sector, in which case the stuff you have tried really should fix it unless its a physical thing.

If it gets further and falls over after its looking for the boot sector its probably a windows issue.

 

[firehawk12]

That's the problem. All I get is a blinking "_" with no other information. From google, I've found that that is a boot issue, but no clue what it could be.

 

[USS KG5]

Have you checked your bios for a "quick boot" or "quiet boot" option you can turn off and get a bit more info?

 

[firehawk12]

No, there aren't that many options.
After running various checks, including using SpinRite, I think I can 99% say for sure that my hard drive is fine. So I guess it's Windows, but I'm not sure.
If I reinstall Windows on top, what will happen? Will I basically lose all my programs and settings?

 

[John Picard]

Formatting does not "fix" bad boot sectors, per se. It flags them and writes that location to a master table that the O/S uses to track bad sectors and not write data there.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

No, there aren't that many options.
After running various checks, including using SpinRite, I think I can 99% say for sure that my hard drive is fine. So I guess it's Windows, but I'm not sure.
If I reinstall Windows on top, what will happen? Will I basically lose all my programs and settings?

I'm not certain it will be on your windows disc or not, but if you boot from the windows disc and start an install, before you get to formatting it there should be an option to repair your windows installation. Which basically deletes the windows files and puts them back on, but leaves everything else intact. So all you'll need to do is reinstall the windows updates.

 

[USS KG5]

No, there aren't that many options.
After running various checks, including using SpinRite, I think I can 99% say for sure that my hard drive is fine. So I guess it's Windows, but I'm not sure.
If I reinstall Windows on top, what will happen? Will I basically lose all my programs and settings?

There is a very odd mixture of versions of XP discs and it depends which one you have, some give you the choice of a repair or force a format, others will happily install windows without formatting the disc, basically leaving you with two XP installs.

I think your physical HDD probably is fine and you just need to reinstall. While you are at it if I were you I would backup your data and do a complete fresh re-install - it gives you performance benefits.

I'm planning on doing a fresh install with XP SP3 when it is released to give my pc a new lease of life.

 

[firehawk12]

So, I did a reinstall and tried installing in another directory and it still didn't boot. In the end, I had to restore to an old partition.
Still, I wish I knew why Windows just died. I Wouldn't mind if I just knew, so I can avoid it.

Question though, anyone know where Outlook stores its emails? I want to try to restore those.

 

[USS KG5]

So, I did a reinstall and tried installing in another directory and it still didn't boot. In the end, I had to restore to an old partition.
Still, I wish I knew why Windows just died. I Wouldn't mind if I just knew, so I can avoid it.

Were you overclocking at all? I've broken Windows doing that before.

Question though, anyone know where Outlook stores its emails? I want to try to restore those.

If you get your email from a POP3 server Outlook will store these in a personal folders file with the extension ".pst". If you do a search for these you will probably find one in one of your application data folders called "outlook.pst" with all your mails in (you can tell by the size if you have a lot of old mail).

Then you just need to go to outlook, look at your folder list, right click where it says "personal folders" (by default outlook creates a new empty one) click "open outlook data file" navigate to your file and open.

Then go to tools >>accounts, change the default message store to your old file, close and reopen outlook and hopefully voila. You can then close the new empty pst after dragging your new mails to your old file by right clicking on the header and using the "close" option.

 

[Noname Given]

IF you have a physical bad boot sector - th drive is toast as a system/primary drive - Period. It will never be able to boot again, period; and no amount of low-leveling or high lvel re-formatting can fix that. You should still be able to use it as a secondary/data drive.