Dell Dimension 3100 - Loading PBR for descriptor 2...done

[sorcerer]

Got this Dell (running Windows XP) in because it was running slowly - but it was running. First thing, as usual, I cloned the drive using Acronis and it completed successfully, including verifying the clone operation. I then used GSmartControl to test the drive and it got 10% through the test and failed with read errors.

I then installed the new, cloned drive into the machine and ran chkdsk /r which found and repaired some errors. When I then tried to boot the machine normally, I get a black screen with a blue bar at the top. Inside the bar it says "www.dell.com". On the next line on the black screen it states "Loading PBR for descriptor 2...done" and just sits there, doing nothing else whatsoever.

Thinking that the clone wasn't successful after all, I cloned the faulty drive again, this time using HDClone Pro 4, but got the same results again even though it said the cloning operation was successful. I decided on the old addage "third time lucky" and this time used Paragon Drive Copy 12 Pro but still got "Loading PBR for Descriptor 2...done" even though, for the third time, the cloning operation had supposedly been successful.

I should also mention that I also tried this on a known-good hard drive, just in case the new drive was somehow faulty, but with no change.

Searching this forum took me to this topic http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20340&highlight=loading+descriptor and the last post in that thread led me to http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixes.shtml so I downloaded and ran the dsrfix program.

This came back with just one Alert - Reference Partition Table out of sync Great, I thought, sounds about right, so I ran the dsrfix program in 'fix' mode (dsrfix /f), which synced the Reference Partition Table and returned all parameters as "Good" - but I still get nothing other than "Loading PBR for Descriptor 2...done" and can get no further.

Any ideas folks?

Cheers
John

 

[coffee]

I would probably look for a repair disk for xp and try running a repair session on it. Is it even possible to get it into service mode? (F8) instead?

If you cloned the whole drive I would probably do a reinstall and then recover their data. That is my second thought on this. Might even be better to move them to windows 7 since you would be doing a re-install.

coffee

 

[sorcerer]

Thanks for the reply Coffee, I was beginning to feel all alone here

I know the owner doesn't want to move to Windows 7 yet as she's in her mid-seventies and is comfortable with XP. When the machine dies completely or if XP comes to end of life first, then she'll move, but she's adamant she's not going before.

I've emailed Dan Goodell (the creator of the dsrfix program) to see if he can shed any light on it, but if not then your idea of a repair session seems the way to go - especially as no-one else has come up with anything.

Cheers my friend,

John

 

[JD1248]

At some point, don't you give up on the cloning. You have a backup of the customer data. Just reload the os and restore her data. The pbr is related to dell diagnostic and restore partitions. That's totally unnecessary to worry about at this point. An elderly lady is not going to do a dell restore on purpose, and you're doing the diagnostics. Nothing will make it run better than a fresh install on a new hard drive. JD

 

[altrenda]

Have you looked at this?
http://www.dell.com/support/trouble.../ArticleView?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&docid=DSN_289265

Let us know if any of this works.

 

[sorcerer]

JD - yes, I know I've spent far too much time on this up to now but business is slow so (a) I have the time to spend, (b) I've never seen this before so I'd like to know how/why just for my own interest and possible future reference, and (c) I've never seen this before so I'm treading carefully.

My normal procedure if a faulty drive can be cloned is to do so, then run chkdsk /r on the new drive and usually that brings a successful conclusion to the job. In this case it didn't but I don't know why, so just curious.

Altrenda - yes, I had seen that but the first two steps haven't worked, so now it's time to move to the final option of reinstalling the OS and restore user data.

Thanks folks

 

[ITMAN]

Can't you image disk but only restore data partition fix mbr, set as active?

 

[sorcerer]

Can't you image disk but only restore data partition fix mbr, set as active?

A fine suggestion my friend and one that I shall carry out. Cheers

 

[ITMAN]

No probs. might work!

 

[JustInspired]

Is the new drive bigger? I had a Dell that needed a BIOS upgrade to work with bigger drives. Same symptoms.

 

[sorcerer]

Is the new drive bigger? I had a Dell that needed a BIOS upgrade to work with bigger drives. Same symptoms.

Yes, existing drive was 80GB, new drive 320GB, so thanks for the suggestion.

 

[sorcerer]

I got a reply from Dan Goodell, the guy who wrote the 'dsrfix' program, and I post it here in its entirety in the hope that it may help someone else in a similar situation, although I think a lot of the problem is down to my own inexperience and lack of knowledge regarding partition tables etc:

Can I instead point you to the background of the problem here:
http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45586

In the interest of keeping everything in one place and not splintering the discussion, I tried to register and respond in the forum but it wouldn't let me. It said I had to wait 5 days. Okay, no point going back there, then. I'll respond here and won't waste my time watching the forum thread.

PS I'm trying to avoid doing a factory reset as I can readily see all user data such as documents, music, photos etc., etc - it's just that the machine will not boot.

Just to be clear, Dsrfix does not repair partitions, it merely repairs links between the MBR and the DSR system. It's a simple tool and assumes the partitions themselves are intact and viable. It repairs the DSR system and the DSR system is for a factory restore, so if you're not wanting to do a factory restore then Dsrfix isn't going to solve your problem. It's not going to repair your standing OS partition.

I apologise for not including a dumpfile - this is not because I couldn't be bothered to do it but because I can't do it. There's no floppy drive on the machine so I had to boot from CD and try to get the dumpfile on a USB flashdrive - but no matter what I did, dsrfix just will not transfer the dumpfile to the USB drive.

A 3100 has no problem saving to flash drive, so probably just a matter of improper execution. The flash drive must be FAT/FAT32 (most already are), it must be inserted in the USB port *before* booting from the CD (DOS is not plug-and-play), and there's no assurance what drive letter it will be assigned so you need to explore and determine that. When you boot from the CD and are left at the A:> prompt, use "dir c:", "dir d:", etc., to get directory listings and see which drive letter appears to be correct. (Hint: it helps if you copy a small "marker" file onto the flash drive so that when you hit the right drive letter the dir listing will show your marker file.) Remember, DOS assigns its own drive letters and these are not necessarily the same as Windows. (Given your screenshots, the flash drive will likely appear as C:.) Once you determine the flash drive's correct drive letter, run Dsrfix with the syntax: "dsrfix > c:\dump.txt" with the flash drive's drive letter and filename of your choosing.

A dumpfile shows much more information than the simple summary screen in your first screenshot. It captures the partition table, reference partition table, and some of the boot sectors for further review.

That said, however, in this case a dumpfile probably won't yield any additional relevant information because you've already run "fix" mode. Instead, your screenshots (posted here as attachments) are enough to hint at the likely cause of the problems.

The ptedit screenshot reveals that your cloning tool did a very poor job. The partition table is all messed up. Note the top line of the screenshot, where ptedit reports hard disk 1 has 255 heads. Yet all three partition descriptors show the cloning tool aligned the partitions for a disk with 16 heads. (16 heads would have a range of valid values of 0-15.) That definitely will cause the XP boot process to hang.

Side observation: While cloning from a smaller disk to a larger disk you let the cloning tool readjust partition sizes proportionately, so the DE and DB partitions are now much larger than need to be. From the size of those partitions in the ptedit screenshot, I'm guessing the original disk was probably around 80GB, so all three partitions were expanded to about 4x their original sizes. Note this is not technically a problem--the system can work just fine with larger Dell partitions, provided the cloning is done correctly. (FWIW, when I copy a system to a larger disk I copy the partitions individually, keeping the same size for the two Dell partitions and letting only the OS partition expand to take up the rest of the space.)

The first thing I would do is backup all the user's data while you can, just in case. I'm not familiar with GSmartControl, but if 10% represents a relative disk location that would suggest a failed sector in the OS partition on the original disk. If the original OS partition is thus corrupt, then you can't count on the clone being viable. Your eventual solution may end up being to do a factory restore on the 320GB and reinstall user programs and restore user data, so be prepared if you have to go that route.

Next, I would try recloning. Make sure you wipe the MBR beforehand just to make sure your cloning tool can't try to reuse the incorrect partition parameters from the bad partition table. I don't know whether the cause of the problem is your choice of cloning tool, or your cloning technique (e.g., external USB enclosure vs. internally attached hard disk), but keep both of those possibilities in mind as you experiment to find what works properly.

(FWIW, I almost always use imaging vs. direct cloning. My preferred technique is to make independent images of all three partitions from the source disk, then partition the destination disk with my desired partition sizes, and finally restore the images one at a time into the predetermined partitions.)

Finally, if you can't or don't want to reclone and absolutely must try to repair the existing 320GB disk, you might try the following. Launch ptedit and directly edit the partition table with the following values:

DE--00-----0--1--1----20----3--63---------63-----321489
07--80----20--4--1--1023--254--63-----321552--599622912
DB--00--1023--0--1--1023--254--63--599944464---25197984
00--00-----0--0--0-----0----0---0----------0----------0


That might work but it's only working around the misaligned partitions instead of properly realigning them, so it's not an ideal solution. Windows itself is extraordinarily forgiving about misalignment, provided the partition table doesn't lead it astray. After editing the partition table it may or may not be necessary to also repair the partition boot sector, which can be done with the "fixboot" command from an XP Recovery Console.

John