MBRWizard Suite Reference

Overview

We designed MBRWizard Suite as a simple solution to protect, repair, and restore the Master Boot Record (MBR) om your hard disks. You should always keep a backup of the critical sections of the disk, including the MBR, Volume Boot Record (VBR), GPT, user-defined sectors, or the entire disk. MBRWizard Suite includes a graphical version to help you step though simple MBR repair, as well as a command line version for scripting and process automation. We also include tools to help you build a custom WinPE recovery environment, to help resolve MBR issues on machines that will no longer boot.

Components

  • MBRWizard - Graphical Windows application. Support for XP through Windows 10, and WinPE currently provided. (sample GUI)
  • Cloud Storage - Free storage on Firesage servers is included to store offline archives of your Master Boot Records
  • MBRWizard CLI (command line) - Includes both Windows 32 and 64 bit versions. (CLI sample)
  • WinPE Rescue Environment - Contains both GUI and CLI versions of MBRWizard in a CD/DVD bootable version of Microsoft Windows. Provided to help you repair the MBR on machines that will not boot due to a corrupt or missing MBR.
  • Boot Disk Builder - Designed to help you create a custom bootable WinPE 2.x/3.0 environment containing the MBRWizard tools.

Operation

MBRWizard Suite provides a new, user-friendly graphical interface program to help even novice users quickly solve MBR related problems. At startup, MBRWizard enumerates the available disks in the machine and presents them for selection. In order to prevent accidental operation on an incorrect disk, MBRWizard allows the selection of only one disk at at time. Once the desired disk is selected by the user, all available features will become available for the selected disk only, each presenting a specific set of operations for the given disk.

Core Functionality and Options

    Each function below may be expanded for additional detailed information
  • + Backup - Saves a copy of the MBR, or other sections of the disk to a backup file. (backup sample)

    • Selecting the MBR for backup comprises the entire first sector (0), which includes the boot record, partition table, and disk signature areas. Track 0 includes the first 63 sectors of the disk, while GPT is comprised of a variable range of sectors associated with the GUID Partition Table style.

    MBRWizard also provides the option to backup individual volume boot records (VBR), which contains the BIOS parameter block and other code for managing the file system within the partition. Finally, a user specified range of sectors can be saved for custom scenarios.

  • + Cloud Backup - Store a copy of the MBR directly to the Firesage Cloud. (cloud sample)

    • Creating backup archives of your master boot record are worthless if they are lost with the removable media, or destroyed with a failing hard drive. MBRWizard 4.0 introduces our Cloud Backup strategy, providing a quick and easy MBR backup over the Internet to keep your backup archives safe.

  • + Restore - Provides for the recovery of a previously backed up file. (recovery sample)

    • Once an existing MBRWizard backup file has been selected, avaialble target locations will become available. Pressing 'Restore' will return the selected section of the disk to the state captured in the backup file.

    Restoring an MBR backup will completely replace sector 0 (MBR) with the contents of the selected file, which is comprised of the boot code, partition table, and disk signature. Note, restoring an MBR file to a disk with a differing partition layout will overwrite the partition structure and effectively lose all data on the disk. In this situation look at the Repair functionality.

    Other repair options may target Track 0, GPT, VBR, or a selected range of sectors.

  • + Repair - Designed to return the MBR to its original state. (repair example)  (Fixing the MBR)

    • If the MBR boot code becomes corrupt due to malware or other reasons, MBRWizard can repair it back to the original status when Windows was installed. Support for the major MBR types is provided, including Windows XP, 2008, Windows 7/Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 formats.

    Note, only the boot code is updated in the restore process. The existing partition table layout and disk signature areas of the MBR will remain untouched, while the surrounding boot code will be repaired.

  • + MBR Patrol - Confirm that no unwanted MBR modifications have been made since last boot. (mbrpatrol example)

    • A boot virus or other malware can strike at anytime, silently making unwanted, destructive modifications to your MBR. With MBR Patrol enabled, your MBR will be validated each time the computer boots. If any changes are identified, you will be alerted to the modifications and assisted with remediation.

  • + Disk Signature - Generating a new signature, deletes the existing, or enters a custom disk signature. (signature sample)

    • The disk signature is a unique identifier which indicates a specific disk to the Windows operating system and Linux 2.6 kernels. Since Windows uses this identifier to remember drive letter assigments between reboots, random letters will be assigned if this identifier gets changed or corrupted.

    In other situations, such as disk cloning or partition removal, a new signature may be desired to tell Windows to re-identify and regenerate drive mappings.

    The disk signature is included in the backup of the MBR, and will be restored to the original value upon MBR recovery.

  • + Partition operations provide a core feature set to manipulate local disk partitions. (partition operations)

    • MBRWizard provides the following partition based operations:

    • Set Active (bootable)
    • Hide, or set visible
    • Change the partition type as seen in the MBR
    • Delete partition
    • Sort, according the order laid out on the disk
    • Create a single, sector aligned partition for offset optimization, specifically on SSDs
    • Detailed disk information can be viewed or printed for emergency situations.
  • + Wipe - Designed to permanently remove the data from the selected disk region. (wipe screenshot)

    • Wiping the MBR effectively removes all partitions, the disk signature, and boot record information from the disk, allowing the disk to be reinitialized. This is most often utilized with USB or other removable media that can no longer be detected by Windows, or situations where a single disk in a RAID array needs to be cleared before re-introducing it to the array. Once wiped, the disk will appear as a factory new drive, allowing the MBR to be rebuilt using the MBRWizard Repair option, or re-initialized from within the operating system.

    MBRWizard also supports wiping other specific disk sections such as Track 0 and the GPT, or the entire disk. Please note, wiping the entire disk can be very time consuming, and is recommended for small flash drives only.

For the reference information associated with the command line version (CLI), please select the CLI Reference tab above.

Installation

MBRWizard Suite is distributed as a compressed Windows installer (MSI file). The install process will create a Start menu item named MBRWizard, from which the suite of applications may be started.

Requirements

MBRWizard is designed to run under all Windows operating systems from Windows 2000 through Windows 10, including Windows Server operating systems and WinPE.

The MBRWizard Boot Disk Builder runs under the same list of operating systems, but also requires that the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows 7 is installed beforehand. Please note, the WAIK is distributed only from Microsoft, and is approximately a 1.5 GB download.

Troubleshooting

For questions or problems with MBRWizard, please reach out to us on the contact page.