Dell PC Restore, Unsupported Change Master Boot Record

we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed up so
my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD thinking it
was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed just win
XP...but now he does not have the other programs the computer
brought....dell support said im screwed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)

"AEsco48" wrote:
we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed
up so my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD
thinking it was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed
just win XP...but now he does not have the other programs the
computer brought....dell support said im screwed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)

Instead of cloning the restore partition, why not clone the actual system
partition instead? FWIW, I always find restore partitions difficult to work
with because they use proprietary techniques to access them, so I blow it
away and create my own restore CD by imaging the system partition first
thing out of the box.

"dg1261" wrote in message
...

"AEsco48" wrote:
we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed
up so my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD
thinking it was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed
just win XP...but now he does not have the other programs the
computer brought....dell support said im screwed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)

Instead of cloning the restore partition, why not clone the actual system
partition instead? FWIW, I always find restore partitions difficult to
work
with because they use proprietary techniques to access them, so I blow it
away and create my own restore CD by imaging the system partition first
thing out of the box.




To the OP; did you remove the 40mb "utility partition" when the drive was
(accidentally) wiped?

Press CTL+F11 at the dell splash and see if everything was blown away. The
utility partition and the factory image might still be intact....


Stew

Welcome to how we learn. Copy the backup disk to the disk
that was recently restored with Windows - or even copy that
backup disk to a third blank hard disk. IOW first try to make
backups in numerous ways. Next use programs fixmbr and
fixboot to try to install master boot software on that backup
disk.

The MBR is unique for each disk. MBR installation programs
install with unique numbers for that particular disk drive.
The fixmbr and fixboot programs are installing customize boot
software on the disk much like the SYS program in DOS made
disks uniquely bootable.

This is but a sliver of what you need understand or what may
be required to (if it is possible) recover those programs. I
wish you luck. If the Registry from the original disk was not
copied to the backup disk, well, you have problem.

Demonstrated is why one does not try to fix things until
first learning what the problem are. One must collect and
record all significant data and symptoms before trying to fix
anything. This concept is not well understood among PC users
who love to wildly speculate and then fix things - sometimes
only complicating what was a simple solution. Ahhh... but we
all have to learn by example. Best I can do is point you in a
direction based upon symptoms posted. You did not even
identify what (or why) the original disk was "messed up".
That too may have been essential information. More often a
'messed up' disk is easily fixed up front if first taking a
long time to collect data and relevant symptoms. The
alternative is called shotgunning - how scam auto mechanics
also fix cars.

AEsco48 wrote:
we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed up so
my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD thinking it
was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed just win
XP...but now he does not have the other programs the computer
brought....dell support said im screwed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)

Jerry Dubukewrote:
my opinion would be to get a copy of Symantec GHOST..then ghost the
"good"
machine, and clone it to the second machine.
If the 2 machines were purchased at the same time, you should have
no
problems other than renaming the second machine once it boots back
up, since
you cannot have 2 computers on a network with the same name.
Jerry

"AEsco48" wrote in
message
...
we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed up
so
my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD thinking
it
was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed just win
XP...but now he does not have the other programs the computer
brought....dell support said im scr**ed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats
on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried
to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was
new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)
[/quote:c9cc7aaf57]

thats exactly what i did, idea was to clone the good computer and then
do a CTR F11...but i got the " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record" and it wont let me do the CTR F11

dg1261wrote:
"AEsco48" wrote:
we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed
up so my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD
thinking it was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed
just win XP...but now he does not have the other programs the
computer brought....dell support said im scr**ed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats
on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried
to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was
new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)

Instead of cloning the restore partition, why not clone the actual
system
partition instead? FWIW, I always find restore partitions difficult
to work
with because they use proprietary techniques to access them, so I blow
it
away and create my own restore CD by imaging the system partition
first
thing out of the box.[/quote:036bffa989]

i used GHOST to copy the whole harddrive to the blank HD

S.Lewiswrote:
"dg1261" wrote in message
...

"AEsco48" wrote:
we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed
up so my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD
thinking it was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed
just win XP...but now he does not have the other programs the
computer brought....dell support said im scr**ed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats
on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried
to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was
new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)

Instead of cloning the restore partition, why not clone the actual
system
partition instead? FWIW, I always find restore partitions difficult
to
work
with because they use proprietary techniques to access them, so I
blow it
away and create my own restore CD by imaging the system partition
first
thing out of the box.




To the OP; did you remove the 40mb "utility partition" when the drive
was
(accidentally) wiped?

Press CTL+F11 at the dell splash and see if everything was blown away.
The
utility partition and the factory image might still be intact....


Stew[/quote:013e4abbd5]

yes it was, the CTRL F11 option was not availible...thats why i tried
cloning the 2nd computers HD...so i could restore the bad computer
with the 2nd computer clone HD

w_tomwrote:
Welcome to how we learn. Copy the backup disk to the disk
that was recently restored with Windows - or even copy that
backup disk to a third blank hard disk. IOW first try to make
backups in numerous ways. Next use programs fixmbr and
fixboot to try to install master boot software on that backup
disk.

The MBR is unique for each disk. MBR installation programs
install with unique numbers for that particular disk drive.
The fixmbr and fixboot programs are installing customize boot
software on the disk much like the SYS program in DOS made
disks uniquely bootable.

This is but a sliver of what you need understand or what may
be required to (if it is possible) recover those programs. I
wish you luck. If the Registry from the original disk was not
copied to the backup disk, well, you have problem.

Demonstrated is why one does not try to fix things until
first learning what the problem are. One must collect and
record all significant data and symptoms before trying to fix
anything. This concept is not well understood among PC users
who love to wildly speculate and then fix things - sometimes
only complicating what was a simple solution. Ahhh... but we
all have to learn by example. Best I can do is point you in a
direction based upon symptoms posted. You did not even
identify what (or why) the original disk was "messed up".
That too may have been essential information. More often a
'messed up' disk is easily fixed up front if first taking a
long time to collect data and relevant symptoms. The
alternative is called shotgunning - how scam auto mechanics
also fix cars.

AEsco48 wrote:
we bought two dell dim 3000's recently...one of them got messed up
so
my father backed everything up and put in the wind XP CD thinking
it
was a recovery CD, it deleted everything and installed just win
XP...but now he does not have the other programs the computer
brought....dell support said im scr**ed b\c we deleted
everything...and they cant give me the other software, just whats
on
the other CD.....so i cloned the 2nd identical computer and tried
to
do the Dell PC Restore but it said " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

how can i fix this, just want to get the computer like if it was
new
out of the box (less then 2 weeks ago)[/quote:ee31f3d91b]

The new clone HD works fine, windows loads up everything works minus
when i try the CTRL F11...i get the " Unsupported Change in your
Master boot record"

i will try the Fixboot and Fixmbr and let you know....

here is the story on the "messed up"...the computer was working fine
expet it would not let me update a tax file in Quickbooks pro...and
the computer was brand new, had very little data that needed to be
backed up so i figured if i could just do a recovery on the whole
computer and have it just like it came out of the box i would be 100%
sure it would solve my problem...

Jerry Dubukewrote:
when you ghosted the original drive - did you ghost DRIVE or
PARTITION?
I have had errors when ghosting the DRIVE with that funky
partition.
I end up doing 2 ghosts - one for each partition, then restoring
each to
their correct locations in the second drive.
Just my .02
Jerry



can you elaborate on what you mean by
"then restoring each to their correct locations in the second drive."

so at this moment the Ctrl F11 works on your second "ghoste'd" drive?