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Hi All!
My brother is facing a problem in his Dell Laptop runing Vista. On Strat Up it stops at message "Loading PBR discriptor 2...done". It does not boot aany further. I run diagnostic test by pressing function key & power it on. Here is the result :
1. Quick (system) test: pass
2. Complete hard disk test: Read test and Verify test failed, all other test pass.
My question is How to fix it without reinstalling the Windows Vista and application on it?
Please Help!
This happen when a HDD goes bad. You need to pull the hard drive out of the computer and hook it to another working machine as a slave drive. Check your jumper on the hard drive. If you can get the computer to boot up while your hard drive is connected, you can use it to search through your files and copy the documents you need to another device. You could also go into your BIOS from that Dell screen and make sure your computer is recognizing the hard drive.
If you have the installation CD try using the Recovery Console to run fixmbr.
Note: You may need to change the boot order in the BIOS so that the CD-ROM is the first device in the boot order to be able to boot from the Windows installation disk.
To run the Recovery Console from the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM, follow these steps:
1. Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer. Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted.
2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you must access from the]Recovery Console.
4. When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
5. At the command prompt, type fixmbr , and then press ENTER.
6. To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
This answer was given to me by Dell when i was facing thre Same problem...!
Load the Windows XP OEM Setup Disk and choose Repair. In the repair console, run the FIXMBR and FIXBOOT commands.Then restart the PC and Windows XP should come back up.
First, make sure that all connections are secure, and reseat the RAM.
Descriptor, means the HDD is having trouble reading (or has been removed) the XP partition(OS is corrupt).
"Loading PBR for descriptor 2 ... failed" would be the exact error message if the MBR is unable to load the partition boot record for the second partition. There may be more, but here are three possible causes:
the partition table is corrupted so that the descriptor points to the wrong place (i.e., says the partition is one place when it's really somewhere else);the partition table descriptor points to the right place, but the boot record there is corrupted or has been erased;
the hard disk is failing and having trouble reading the sector with the boot record.
To check
(1)download my dsrfix utility. Use it to capture a logfile and email the logifle to me for review. In short, if dsrfix reports a clean bill of health, then (1) isn't the problem.
(2), run hard disk diagnostic tests. Press F12 when the machine is starting and see if the bios boot menu offers you a hard disk diagnostic test that you can run. Or even better, if you know the brand of the hard disk, most manufacturers should have a free diagnostic utility you can download to test the hard disk.
If it's not (1) or (2), then use Ctrl+F11 to run the Dell restore utility to recreate the Windows partition.
"Bad PBR" means the partition boot record the MBR is trying to load has an invalid sector signature.
Right before that message, you should see something like "Loading PBR for descriptor 2". That will tell you which PBR the MBR is having a problem with--descriptor '1' is the Dell Utility partition, '2' is the XP partition, and '3' is the Dell Restore partition.