Why does support tell me I need an MBR on an external drive?

Depends on how that drive is being seen and handled by your system's BIOS, but it needs something in sector 0 of the drive. In any case, there's an article at http://askbobrankin.com/fix_mbr.html that may be helpful. Alternatively there's a "third party" mbrfix.exe utiltity at http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm

The MBR (Sector 0) contains the booting code and the partition table. Having booting code on an external drive does not cause a BSOD. Normally, any drive that's has one or more partitions on it has booting code or code of some type in the MBR. It's usually placed there when the drive is initialized and/or formatted.

The partition table has to exist so Sector 0 has to contain something. Apparently, the software is having a problem reading the sector (or the data in the sector).

Is Windows or any other programs having any problems with the drive? Sometimes it's an issue specific to how the Acronis drivers access the drive.

Any MBR program that's capable of placing standard booting code on the drive without changing the partition table can be used. You don't want to just write 512 bytes to Sector 0.

Hi MudCrab!

Thanks to all who replied thus far.

To answer you "No" Windows has no trouble with accessing the drive either reading from it or writing to it. Plus TI 2010 works fine if I don't use the esata connection and do use USB.

There is no partition on this drive it's just 1TB formatted NTFS.

I can easily move my files to my HD and then partition the esata 1TB drive, will this give me the MBR that Acronis seems to think I need?

No one has ever asked me if the drive was partitioned. I can easily reformat the drive or partition it or both.

Cheers and thanks,

F Wolf

In order for the drive to be formated and or drive lettered, it must contain at least one partition. Otherwise, it cannot be formatted.

Open your Windows Disk Management graphical view and look at any of your disks including the external, each colored section will be a different partition. The MBR for the external drive will contain the beginning and ending points (sectors) for each partition(s) that exists on that drive--even if only one partition exists.

MBRWizard is useful for finding out about the partition table on any drive, and can add standard MBR code without altering the partition table. As pointed out, since the partition table is part of the MBR, and the partition information has to be present to access the "drive" even if it is a single partition. Perhaps TI senses a problem with the MRB code (which is not used) that it doesn't like.

BTW, the MBR is not a "file" - it is sector 0 on the drive. You can save the sector contents as a file (like with MBRWizard), but the MBR is not a file.

Hi GroverH!

When I do as you suggest and check the "Device Properties of Drive G" (my USB sata drive) it tells me that" Partition style is MBR.

I assume that this means there IS an MBR for that drive?

Thanks,

F Wolf

Sorry to not be Grover, but an MBR partition style means that there is an MBR (which is not a very good name - it should be called a master access record, since it has the base boot code, the disk ID, and the partition table contained in it). They are present on drives even if they are not boot drives for the reason of disk IDs and partition tables. So we can assume that Disk Management saw the one partition of this drive just fine. It probably came with only one partition on it (my 1TB external USB drive came this way, and it definitely is an MBR drive).

Just for an example, I have included the output from MBRWizard for my system with 2 internal SATA drives, 2 external USB hard drives, and 1 USB thumb drive. All of them have MBR's, since this is where MBRWizard gets its information. Disk 0 (primary internal SATA) is the normal boot disk with standard MBR boot code, Disk 1 (secondary internal SATA) is bootable, but with Grub4DOS boot code in the the MBR, and Disk 3 (external USB hard drive) is also bootable with Grub4DOS. The other disks are not bootable, but have MBRs, even the FAT16 thumb drive. The MBRndx value give the entry in the partition table - which is in the MBR.

MBRWiz - Version 2.0 **beta** for Windows XP/2K3/PE April 30, 2006
Copyright (c) 2002-2006 Roger Layton http://mbr.bigr.net

Disk: 0 Size: 153G CHS: 19452 255 63
Pos MBRndx Type/Name Size Active Hide Start Sector Sectors DL Vol Label
--- ------ ---------- ---- ------ ---- ------------ ------------ -- ----------
0 0 DE-Dell 39M No No 63 80,262 --
1 1 07-NTFS 50G Yes No 80,325 102,253,725 C: MainSystem
2 2 07-NTFS 103G No No 102,334,050 210,162,330 D: MainData

Disk: 1 Size: 76G CHS: 9726 255 63
Pos MBRndx Type/Name Size Active Hide Start Sector Sectors DL Vol Label
--- ------ ---------- ---- ------ ---- ------------ ------------ -- ----------
0 0 DE-Dell 39M No No 63 80,262 --
1 1 17-NTFS 50G Yes Yes 80,325 102,253,725 --
2 2 07-NTFS 26G No No 102,334,050 53,914,140 I: ISOFiles

Disk: 2 Size: 954G CHS: 121601 255 63
Pos MBRndx Type/Name Size Active Hide Start Sector Sectors DL Vol Label
--- ------ ---------- ---- ------ ---- ------------ ------------ -- ----------
0 0 07-NTFS 954G Yes No 63 953,520,065 H: Expansion

Disk: 3 Size: 305G CHS: 38913 255 63
Pos MBRndx Type/Name Size Active Hide Start Sector Sectors DL Vol Label
--- ------ ---------- ---- ------ ---- ------------ ------------ -- ----------
0 1 07-NTFS 305G Yes No 63 625,137,282 E: SysBack2

Disk: 4 Size: 1.9G CHS: 243 255 63
Pos MBRndx Type/Name Size Active Hide Start Sector Sectors DL Vol Label
--- ------ ---------- ---- ------ ---- ------------ ------------ -- ----------
0 0 06-FAT16B 1.9G No No 129 3,906,879 J: ATIVA

One reason the drive is being recognised at boot time and causing the error message might be because it is an eSata drive, so it is being recognised as an internal drive rather than as a USB drive would be spotted.

I'm unclear as whether this error message is being seen at Windows boot time, the start up of TIH or when booting via the Rescue CD.

Hello everyone,

Thank you for all the information, you guys are far better informed than I am!

Colin B,

The error message appears when I use the esata cable to the drive and boot from the rescue CD. The odd thing is that for about 2 weeks +/- the error was not present and I could boot from the rescue CD just fine.

Now when it boots it takes about 2 minutes, the program displays 'processing' in that tie frame and then I get the error message "FAILED TO READ FROM SECTOR 0 OF HARD DISK 0." If I choose to ignore the message and go on, the "Disk 2" isn't listed at all in the list of drives. However when I connect using USB I can use any rescue media I want and the drive is seen immediately.

I have also made a disc using BARTPE, that one WILL allow me to use the esata connection, and recognize the drive, but only under safe mode on the disc.

If TIH NEVER worked for me that would be one thing, but to have it work and then quit after 2 weeks is hard to understand. That's why I am pestering you all for an answer.

Thank you all very much,

F Wolf

It sounds like there may be a discrepancy in the way the disk is viewed under USB vs. eSATA, and also from Windows and the boot media. I would start by getting the disk and partition details while connected to USB and eSATA, then from inside each environment, you can attach them here for review. MBRWizard is a good choice as it provides size and sector information for both disk and partition, as well as connection type and other detailed information. Make sure you use the 3.0 version for USB information to include USB disk info.

I was thinking of moving all my data from the esata drive onto my HD, then reformatting the esata. I can do this without the aid of MBRWizard. And if there was a problem with the MBR wouldn't reformatting create a NEW MBR for that drive?

Of course another $5 at this point isn't going to send me to the poorhouse, it might be easier just to shell out the money and try the MBRWizard program and run it. I am afraid I may send the wrong data to the forum but I will try it.

F W

Gary,

Looking at the new version of MBRWIZARD http://firesage.com/mbrwizard.php I don't see how to get all the information you have displayed here.

I surely don't want to start changing things by merely trying to get information from the external drive. As far as I am concerned all the data is nice to look at but it's all Greek to me. Once I had the data I couldn't interpret it.

Thanks,

F W

Ok,

So I have MBRWIZARD version 3.0.

I'm sorry but I see no way to copy the information it gives me about the USB/esata drive without taking a screen shot of the information. This thing isn't exactly intuitive :(

If that's what you want to see I can do that: but there must be a way to make a log file and I don't see it.

F W

There is another possibility concerning the eSata connection. E-sata is known to have some strange vagaries, but it might also be that the cable is electrically degraded, this can also happen with IDE cables internally and causes much puzzlement.

If you have a spare Sata cable try that.

I use MBRWizard 2.0, as seen above. The command under 2.0 is mbrwiz /list.

Make sure you use the command line version with the redirect command, for example, to write the details of the list command to the file c:\mydisks.txt, use the following:
mbrwiz /list /text > c:\mydisks.txt

Post the mydisks.txt file or content to this thread.

Thanks Jimmy, I forgot to mention that redirection was used to make a text file just like you showed, then I just cut and pasted into my post earlier (but I forgot the code to make a monospace font as it should be so everything would be lined up nicely). MBRWizard 2.0 works fine with all my USB drives as shown earlier, but I don't have any eSATA drives. So I haven't looked into version 2.0 since the freeware 2.0 works fine for me.

Everyone,

First I misunderstood WHAT version of MBRWIZ to obtain. I spent $4.95 for a GUI program v 3 that is useless and will NOT show the text file information that you showed me. It might do a lot of other cool things but for the purposes here, to me it's worthless.

Today I find out the program I should have gotten was FREEWARE and is a command line program only...........

In any case here are two text files, one is with the USB connection to the eSATA drive and the other is with the eSATA connection.

I see two problems:

1/ It reports that my DISK 0 ( my main HD ) is an IDE drive, it is not. It is a 640GB WD SATA.
2/ It reports that my eSATA connection as a SCSI connection, again it isn't, it's eSATA.

I have tried another eSATA cable to my drive with the same results, IE: I get the same error message about sector 0 and I have tried another drive with that cable and my machine wouldn't even boot up to Windows.

I am also wondering when I get the error message about sector 0 on drive 0 why is my main HD listed in Acronis and the eSATA drive missing? MBRWIZ is calling my main HD Disc 0 and my ESATA as disc 5. What the? I always assumed that it was telling me it couldn't read from the external drive and that's why it wasn't listed as 'DISK 2; in Acronis. But MBRWiz is calling the main HD disc 0 I don't get it.

As always I am grateful for all the help I am getting with this problem.

Regards,

F W

The MBRWizard information doesn't show any sign of problems, both the disk geometry and partition tables look clean... and identical. I was expecting to see a difference in the geometry when connected via USB or eSATA, which could explain difficulty reading the MBR.

Regarding your concerns, Windows generally lumps storage devices into one of a few categories, namely IDE, SCSI, and USB. Although the actual connection may be something different, they classify SATA as IDE and eSATA as SCSI, nothing to raise an alarm.

Also, disks are re-enumerated each time they are plugged in or the machine rebooted, so I wouldn't be concerned about the difference in disk numbers either. Does Acronis list the main disk as 0?

Back to the initial problem, does the error message "FAILED TO READ FROM SECTOR 0 OF HARD DISK 0" occur from Acronis running under Windows, or from their boot media?

There are a couple of paths you can go down to test further:

1. Using MBRWizard you can backup the MBR to a file, then attempt to restore it. This would tell if Sector 0 can be written to.
2. As mentioned earlier, you could copy all data from the disk, then reinitialize and reformat it when connected as eSATA.

I would start with #1 as it's the easiest to test, but I would backup the MBR on both disks just in case you overwrite the MBR on the wrong disk. The GUI version looks much easier to use, as I have accidentally restored a backup to the wrong disk with the CLI before (hoping you learn from my lack of attention to detail with the CLI version of MBRWizard). Here's your chance to utilize your investment!

Best of luck, let us know how it goes.

Hi JimmyB,

Thanks for the rundown and clean bill of health on the drives. It was what I was hoping, and expecting to hear.
Acronis calls the main disc Disk 1 and the eSATA is Disk 2

I only get the message about sector 0 when I use the boot media, under Windows it's fine with either USB or eSATA. The only way NOT to get the message when using eSATA is use a boot disc made with BARTPE. That one only will work from safe mode, not 'full version', but it gives no errors.

I agree that I can make use of my investment by copying/re-writing the MBR but if it doesn't work, it will render that drive unusable won't it?

Method 2 may take a lot longer but I might feel safer doing it that way at least I know I can get to all my data, some of which I just dragged onto the drive.

Also is there any possibility that the sector size is the issue? I formatted the eSATA as with 512KB sectors rather than the 4096 default.

Just a thought as I grasp for straws.......

Thanks for your attention my problem!

F W

JimmyB,

I tried your method using MBRWIZARD and copied and successfully restored the MBR on the eSATA drive.

Now where do I go from here?

Thanks!

F W

It certainly appears that everything is working properly, both from a USB and eSATA point of view. The disk geometry checks out, the MBR (sector 0) can be read and written to, and Windows can access the disk properly and isn't throwing up any red flags. It sounds like the Acronis boot media isn't able to properly access the disk, either due to driver or other issues. I believe the default Acronis boot media is linux based, perhaps the included driver isn't 100% compatible with this eSATA controller.

At this point I think you need to address this further with Acronis Support. For the sake of argument you may want to consider backing up the data and creating a new partition/MBR on this disk, otherwise they will probably continue to point to this as the problem. Otherwise you may want to look at using a WinPE 3.0 CD recovery environment, which is based on Windows 7 and surely supports this controller.

Best of luck, hopefully this narrows down the problem for you (and them). Please check back if you have any further questions.

If you are interested in a WinPE build, here is a tutorial on using the Acronis WinPE ISO builder which is part of the Plus Pack: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/9449

F Wolf wrote:

Now when it boots it takes about 2 minutes, the program displays 'processing' in that tie frame and then I get the error message "FAILED TO READ FROM SECTOR 0 OF HARD DISK 0." If I choose to ignore the message and go on, the "Disk 2" isn't listed at all in the list of drives. However when I connect using USB I can use any rescue media I want and the drive is seen immediately.

Wouldn't Hard disk 0 be the internal boot drive and not the esata drive?

Gary Darsey, JimmyB, Mud Crab, Colin and everyone,

As a last resort I have reformatted the eSATA drive, even changing the cluster size to 4096. I get the same error message as I did when all this first started "Failed to read blah blah."

I guess I need to spend more money on the plus pack and use Gary's help file to make a WinPE disc. Something I don't think I should have to do Or be content with my workaround of the BARTPE disc that only works in safe mode.

Let me say thanks again to everyone who has helped me over the past weeks, I've learned a lot but never solved the problem.

Best wishes to all you guys,

F Wolf ttfn

Have you tried either the eSata drive on another computer or another drive on the same computer?
If the eSata drive also has a USB connection it might be worthwhile seeing what happens if that is used.

For your problem purchasing the PlusPack won't make any difference.

Have you downloaded the ISO Rescue CD version from your account? This uses a different Linux compilation and may recognise your external drive as it uses BIOS calls rather than drivers.

Heed Colin's advice - don't spend any money needlessly. You could see if WinPE handles the disk properly without TI present by just making a "bare" build - the Microsoft WAIK is free, although it is a painful download. If a base WinPE build can't handle the drive, TI running under WinPE wouldn't deal with it either.

Colin B wrote:

Have you tried either the eSata drive on another computer or another drive on the same computer?
If the eSata drive also has a USB connection it might be worthwhile seeing what happens if that is used.

For your problem purchasing the PlusPack won't make any difference.

Have you downloaded the ISO Rescue CD version from your account? This uses a different Linux compilation and may recognise your external drive as it uses BIOS calls rather than drivers.

Colin B wrote:

Have you tried either the eSata drive on another computer or another drive on the same computer?
If the eSata drive also has a USB connection it might be worthwhile seeing what happens if that is used.

For your problem purchasing the PlusPack won't make any difference.

Have you downloaded the ISO Rescue CD version from your account? This uses a different Linux compilation and may recognise your external drive as it uses BIOS calls rather than drivers.

Hi Colin and Gary,

I have no way to try the eSATA drive on another machine, since the other machines I have have no eSATA connection on the MB.

Colin, If I DO use the USB connection on the drive, all is well. TI recognizes the drive immediately with no trouble at all, no matter what boot media version I use ( I have made 5 from various .iso files thus far .)

The only one of the 5 I have made that WILL 'see' the eSATA drive, when connected with the eSATA cable, is the one made using BARTPE, but that one only works in safe mode it will not work if I choose full version.

A friend brought over his eSATA drive and cable, we tried the cable on my drive with the same result :ERROR:

Then we connected his cable and drive and tried to just boot the machine without using any rescue media. My computer went into a fit and then went directly to CHKDSK and corrected a ton of errors! We never even got my machine to boot to Windows with the other drive and cable connected. This of course was a mystery to us both, we weren't trying to boot from his drive we just wanted to see if my machine would read from it, but no dice, it never worked for us. But it works fine at his house on his machine!

As a point of interest both he and I have Asus MB's mine is a Rampage Extreme his is not that quite elaborate. We both run XP Pro SP3. I have all the updates installed, he has none. I have looked in the BIOS to see if there is anything that might effect the eSATA drive but I can't seem to find anything. It is a complicated AMI BIOS to be sure, with tons of things you can change. My machine runs fine in daily use for whatever I want to do with it, there are no problems that I can see, other than those inherent with Windows.

Gary, thanks for your insight about not wasting money on something that won't prove anything.

Regards and thanks for your continued attempt to help me, don't feel bad tech support has no idea either...

F Wolf

F Wolf wrote:

This of course was a mystery to us both, we weren't trying to boot from his drive we just wanted to see if my machine would read from it, but no dice, it never worked for us. But it works fine at his house on his machine!

As a point of interest both he and I have Asus MB's mine is a Rampage Extreme his is not that quite elaborate. We both run XP Pro SP3. I have all the updates installed, he has none. I have looked in the BIOS to see if there is anything that might effect the eSATA drive but I can't seem to find anything. It is a complicated AMI BIOS to be sure, with tons of things you can change. My machine runs fine in daily use for whatever I want to do with it, there are no problems that I can see, other than those inherent with Windows.

The Asus AMI BIOSes for Rampage and some of their other eSATA-capable mobos are indeed complex to the point of being intimidating for many users and, as I said earlier, a lot depends on how the BIOS is seeing and handling your drive when it's connected as eSATA. As was also mentioned earlier, unlike USB connected drives, eSATAs are generally seen as if they were "internals" and may thus be included in the boot order settings at the BIOS level.

I'm really just guessing, but as a fellow user of the Asus "high end" AMI BIOS, it sure sounds like a BIOS-level issue to me, at least as a contributing factor. If so, it is perhaps not so surprising that the Acronis techies (among others) are somewhat baffled. You might want to check the BIOS boot order settings for your hard drives to see whether the eSATA is included and, if so, in what order. That might also possibly help to account for that strange HARD DISK 0 message.

Good luck and, if it's any consolation, know that you're not alone with eSATA's occasional mysteries, especially with some Asus mobos. They seem to issue flash updates every other week, but I would NOT recommend flashing your BIOS except as an absolute last resort.

HI Richard,

I have searched the manual for the MB and there is no reference to eSATA at all in the BIOS information. I also spoke to Asus today and asked them about whether I am losing throughput having the internal SATA configured as IDE. the answer was 'No'. Plus he said that USB 2.0 is faster than eSATA as far as throughput, if that's the case I will be happy to only use USB and can forget about eSATA.

I guess I was misinformed about the speeds of the two connections, that's why I was insistent on using the eSATA cable instead of USB.

Using USB ANY boot media sees the external drive immediately and all is well, so that's what I will use from now on.

Yeah that AMI BIOS is a bear with all it's settings there's no doubt about it, I never flashed it nor do I intend to, it's working fine as it is.

I am very pleased with the Rampage MB, I know there are much faster ones out there now but this one is great and isn't overclocked at all.

Regards and thank you,

F W

eSATA should run much faster than USB 2. Unless something is not working correctly, it should give you the same speed as if the drive were connected internally to a SATA port. It does on my computers.

If there isn't a specific BIOS option for eSATA, there should be one for the controller that runs the eSATA ports. This is JMicron on a lot of boards with Intel chipsets.

Have you checked whether the equipment being used with eSata has any driver or firmware updates? It may have been posted (and there has been so much posted) as to exactly how the eSata is being attached to computer. Is the eSata being connected via a docking station or a PCI adaper card--or how? I have several different eSata devices and none have given me a problem when using XP Pro. Mine connect via a docking station connected to the computer via a PCI adapter controller card.

Hi MudCrab and GroverH,

Yes I agree that eSATA should be faster than USB 2.0 just like sata is faster than pata. I think the Asus guy was fos in that area. Last night it took me an hour or more to backup 87GB of data from the D partition using USB. Geez that ain't fast is it?

No there is no mention of eSATA at all in the manual other than to show you where the port is externally. There is no mention of it in the BIOS, that only shows the 6 SATA ports on the board. I wish it was different but it's not.

GroverH,

The drive is connected to the computer with a cable about 1m in length. It plugs into the back of the Rampage Extreme MB. There are no updates for it needless to say. There are 6 on board sata ports on the main part of the board. This connection is a 7th one on the back of the board.

thanks guys,

F W

Your garage mechanic might be an equally reliable source as Asus fos "technical support" call-up personnel.

If your Asus AMI BIOS set-up is anthing like my own, eSATA operates under the JMicron controller: Advanced -> Onboard Devices Configuration -> JMicron SATA/PATA Controller. Since I just leave mine configured as plain old-fshioned IDE, it is listed as Fourth IDE Master and the drive itself (if connected as eSATA) is included in the boot order settings under Boot Settings -> Hard Disk Drives.

Frankly, I'm too lazy to be bothered with it. My USB 2.0 connected external drive is plenty fast enough for my routine overnight backup jobs, although it is certainly true that eSATA can be much faster, at least in theory. I suppose a lot depends on one's own "need for speed" philosophy. Personally, I'm looking foward to USB 3.0 on my next 'puter. :^)

P.S.: Incidentally, USB connected drives are also bootable if required simply by enabling "legacy" USB support under the Asus AMI BIOS settings. I'm sure you knew that already, but thought it might possibly be worth mentioning for other readers of this thread.

Hi Richard,

No I am sorry my AMI BIOS v02.61 isn't the same as yours. There is no JMicron controller listed, mine is Marvell and has to be run in Legacy Mode to have the eSATA drive seen at all by the OS.

I backed up 89GB of data using USB 2.0 and it took at least 1 hour. Then I changed to SATA and made the same backup, this time it only took 30 minutes. That was a full backup and not an incremental one.

Thanks for the reply as I soldier on.........

F W

Then, I would conclude that your Asus Rampage Extreme BIOS looks like this one and that your mobo is equipped with a Marvel 88SE6121 controller with one eSATA port and one PATA channel for legacy support.  (Required because the ICH9R southbridge has no PATA support of its own.)

As I said earlier, you are definitely not alone with occasional eSATA mysteries on some Asus mobos.  In fact, according to some posts I've read, it appears that native Windows drivers can sometimes work better than Marvell's own in these cases.  Perhaps this thread in the Asus forums will afford you some help on the subject.

Soldier on, by all means.  Good luck.