I had been using UBCD 4 FreeDos to fix the MBR on new drives that had not had Windows installed because our ZenWorks partitioning and imaging process did not seem to affect the MBR. On UBCD 4, I would go to T:\dosapps\fdisk and run fdisk /mbr without problems. I would have continued this process but one of our newer model PCs had problems loading FreeDos and did not map a T: drive. So far, I have not been able to find a similar solution with UBCD 5 because it loads Free FDISK whenever the fdisk command is executed and that only works with FAT32 (and does not have a MBR section from what I can tell).

TL;DR: Is there any way to run fdisk /mbr on UBCD 5?

From the UBCD 5.0.3 menu, select UBCD DOS.

After the boot process finishes, you end with several options, like "VC", or "DOS apps", "about" and "exit", among others.

Select "Exit". You get to the DOS prompt.

Run:


to see the available options. Among others, you will see " /STATUS ", " /INFO ", and " /MBR [DRIVE#] ".

You should double check the drive and partition number, and check that the hardware (like the HDD size) is compatible with Freedos fdisk.

HTH.

In the alphas of UBCD5.1 this problem is fixed (MEMDISK mapped ISO vs MEMDISK mapped floppy image only).

You can always boot into Parted Magic an run TestDisk, and choose the "[ MBR code ]" submenu.

_________________
Download Ultimate Boot CD v5.0: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
Use Parted Magic for handling all partitioning task: http://partedmagic.com/

@Icecube

I was answering the following question:



Are you saying the procedure I described above is not going to help him?

Additionally, in UBCD51a1 the user would need to manually correct the "fdubcd.img instead of fdubcd.iso" problem first.

He says he can't boot the FreeDOS image successfully on some of his PCs (CDROM/USB drive with UBCD not found). So in that case, your way won't work for him ATM.

_________________
Download Ultimate Boot CD v5.0: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
Use Parted Magic for handling all partitioning task: http://partedmagic.com/

Just to clarify, the model I'm troubleshooting has no trouble loading FreeDOS on the 5.0.3 disc, only on the 4.x disc.


That was the first process I tried. Unfortunately, even "fdisk /?" loads a program called Free FDISK rather than using the one supplied with FreeDOS.


I'll try this next time. Somehow all of my fiddling around with various disk utilities solved the problem even though I don't remember actually applying any changes!

That's very odd. Even if you select Freedos Fdisk directly from the UBCD menu instead of selecting UBCD DOS first and then going to the prompt, you should still have the option to run the command.

If you get into fdisk, then answer "yes" to the fat32 initial question. Once inside fdisk, press <esc> to exit fdisk, and you should return to the prompt.

If you got into UBCD DOS options as I described above, you shouldn't select "DOS apps" -> Freedos Fdisk. Instead, you select "exit" to get to the prompt, and then run "fdisk /?".

If you somehow got to the prompt and you run "fdisk /?", you must receive the help, not the UI. If that's not happening, then you should double check your ubcd503.iso checksum and the burned CD. This is also valid even if you already solved the problem for this particular HDD.

Something else that seems somehow strange to me is that you mentioned a "free fdisk" that is different from the Freedos Fdisk program. Although there are several "fdisk-type" programs included in UBCD 5.0.3, I don't know which specific "fdisk version/program" you are seeing displayed when you run "fdisk /?".