Fix or Repair Master Boot Record (MBR) in Windows 10

Master Boot Record is also known as Master Partition Table which is the most important sector of the drive that is located at the beginning of a drive which identifies the location of the OS and allows Windows 10 to boot. It is the first sector of the physical disk. The MBR contains a boot loader in which the operating system is installed with the drive’s logical partitions. If Windows is not able to boot then you may need to fix or repair your Master Boot Record (MBR), as it might be corrupted.

There are various reasons why the MBR might get corrupted like viruses or malware attacks,  system reconfiguration, or the system did not shut down properly. A problem in MBR will get your system into trouble and your system will not boot up. So in order to deal with this problem, there are several ways through which we can fix this.

Contents

• Fix or Repair Master Boot Record (MBR) in Windows 10
• Method 1: Use Windows Automatic Repair
• Method 2: Repair or Rebuild Master Boot Record (MBR)
• Method 3: Use GParted Live
• Method 4: Repair Install Windows 10

Fix or Repair Master Boot Record (MBR) in Windows 10

Method 1: Use Windows Automatic Repair

The first and foremost step that should be taken while facing Windows boot problem is performing the Automatic Repair on your system. Along with the MBR issue, it will handle any issue related to the Windows 10 boot problem. If there is an issue with your system related to boot then hard restart your system three times by pressing the power button. Your system will automatically start the repairing process or else you can use the Windows recovery or installation disc:

1.Insert the Windows 10 bootable installation DVD and restart your PC.

2.When prompted to Press any key to boot from CD or DVD, press any key to continue.

3.Select your language preferences, and click Next. Click Repair your computer in the bottom-left.

4.On choose an option screen, click Troubleshoot.

5.On Troubleshoot screen, click Advanced option.

6.On the Advanced options screen, click Automatic Repair or Startup Repair.

7.Wait til the Windows Automatic/Startup Repairs complete.

8.Restart and you have successfully Fix or Repair Master Boot Record (MBR) in Windows 10.

If your system responds to the Automatic Repair then it will give you the option to Restart the System otherwise it will show that Automatic Repair failed to fix the issue. In that case, you need to follow this guide: How to fix Automatic Repair couldn’t repair your PC

Method 2: Repair or Rebuild Master Boot Record (MBR)

If the Automatic Repair does not works then you can use the command prompt to repair the corrupted MBR by opening it from the Advanced option.

1.From the Choose an option screen, click on Troubleshoot.

2.Now click on Advanced options from the Troubleshoot screen.

3.From the Advanced options window click on Command Prompt.

4.In the Command Prompt type the following command and hit Enter:

bootrec.exe /FixMbr bootrec.exe /FixBoot bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd

5.After each command is executed successfully the message of operation completed successfully will come.

6.If the above commands don’t work or create a problem, then type the following commands in order and hit Enter after each one:

bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup c: cd boot attribbcd -s -h -r ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

The export and rebuild process takes place with the help of these commands that will repair the MBR in Windows 10 and fix any issues related to the Master boot record.

Method 3: Use GParted Live

Gparted Live is a small Linux distribution for computers. Gparted Live allows you to work on the windows partitions without booting up means outside the proper windows environment. To download the Gparted Live click here.

If your system is a 32-bit system then choose the i686.iso version. If you have a 64-bit system then choose the amd64.iso version. Both versions are available in the link provided above.

After you have downloaded the correct version as per your system requirement then you need to write the disc image to the bootable device. Either it can be a USB flash drive, a CD or a DVD. Also, UNetbootin is required for this process which you can download from here. UNetbootin is required so that you can write the disc image of Gparted Live onto a bootable device.

1.Click on UNetbootin to open it.

2.In the bottom side click on Diskimage.

3.Select the three dots right along the same line and browse the ISO from your computer.

4.Select the type whether a CD, DVD or a USB drive.

5.Hit OK to start the process.

Once the process is done then simply take out the bootable device from the computer and shut down your computer.

Now insert the bootable device containing Gparted Live in the system which is having a corrupted MBR. Start the system, then keep pressing the boot shortcut key which can be the Delete key, F11 key or F10 depending on the system. Follow these steps to use the Gparted Live.

1.As soon as the Gparted loads, open a Terminal window by typing sudofdisk–l then hit enter.

2.Again open another Terminal window by typing test disk and select No Log.

3.Select the disk that you want to repair.

4.Select the partition type, select Intel/PC partition and hit enter.

5.Select Analyse and then Quick Search.

6.This is how Gparted live can analyze the problem related to MBR and can Fix Master Boot Record (MBR) issues in Windows 10.

Method 4: Repair Install Windows 10

If none of the above solutions work for you then you can be sure that your hard disk is fine but you may be facing issue with MBR because the operating system or the BCD information on the hard disk was somehow erased. Well, in this case, you can try to Repair install Windows but if this also fails then the only solution left is to Install a new copy of Windows (Clean Install).

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I hope the above steps were able to help you Fix or Repair Master Boot Record (MBR) in Windows 10 but if you still have any questions regarding this tutorial then feel free to ask them in the comment section.