Any hope for bad MBR?

[b2bomber81]

HP 866Mhz System
Running Win ME
Western Digital 40GB HDD
Norton AV (w/ updated defs)

Last night I ran a system scan and Norton found that the MBR had been modified. Not sure what caused this, but it repaired it and everything was fine. Restarted the computer, just fine.

Today, something obviously happened again. Some wierd pop-up windows started coming up while I was disconnected from the internet. Figured it was a virus, ran Norton. No infected files, and MBR tested good. So I went into check MSCONFIG for any startup programs that might be causing it. Nothing there out of the ordinary. I hit okay, said offered to restart the computer, I did.

Booting up gives me an "Invalid System Disk" error. Can't boot into windows at all. Can anybody offer some suggestions please, on how this could have happened, what I can do to recover it (if anything)?? Please!

Why didn't Norton catch the problem? Any help is MUCH appreciated.

 

[Rick]

What version of Windows do you have?

This is a very important piece of information.

 

[acidosmosis]

Originally posted by b2bomber81
HP 866Mhz System
Running Win ME
Western Digital 40GB HDD
Norton AV (w/ updated defs)

Rick: It say's Win ME

 

[Greeno]

Does you hard drive still show up in the POST or BIOS?

Have you backed up recently?

I dont really like recommending you the using FDISK with the /MBR swtich

i.e.

A:\>FDISK /MBR - to re-write your MBR.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q69013

I'll leave that with you.

 

[b2bomber81]

Thanks guys for the info. Looks pretty hopeless. Can't even get a C:\ prompt. Took it into Best Buy where it was purchased, they ran GWSCAN, and it couldn't communicate with it. So it's pretty well toast. The read/write heads are probably whacked out. So, lesson learned... backup more frequently. Last backup was November.

Thanks again!

 

[Rick]

Yeah, GWSCAN doesn't pickup the drive, then it is toast.

 

[b2bomber81]

That takes me to my next question - GWSCAN. What is it? Is it a big-bucks piece of software that the average "consumer" can't afford to purchase or is there a place I could get my hands on it?