Ok, first of all this is an experiment, i intentionally screwed up this test machine. heres what I'm trying to do, but first to give you a better idea of what is happening:

first, I zeroed the MBR on a HD that contained a fresh install of windows xp on an NTFS file system, so now no partition table, no nothing.

second, i booted into Win PE(bart pe) and went into GetDataBack for NTFS and as expected all the files were in there and recoverable, including all the NTFS system files(http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs-system-files.htm).

Now what im wondering is, is this recoverable? Is there a way to somehow shalack these $files onto the harddrive once again so that my partition table and boot info is once again there? the above link says that format.com puts these $files in place, but does anyone who knows about data recovery, know if there is a way to make this happen or am i trying the impossible? please only reply if you know about this kind of thing.

thanks

I've used r-studio's recovery program, but my hdd was not 0'd, but my guess is it'd still be able to recover

though I should say acronis partition recovery might be able to do more because acronis products also contain a hdd wipe program so they should be able do a little better?

though u need another hdd to backup your stuff..

Twice i've had a corrupted MBR, the only program that ever worked was r-studio from r-tt.com. I highly recommend it, and you can use it from winpe. Just import the serial using a .reg file then the program will run fine from winpe.

-gosh

Have you tried FIXMBR from the recovery console? I believe that is the command.

I believe that is the command, type HELP. I know there is one to replace the MBR. This is all assuming that it is only your MBR that is gone, and not files. Then you would need recovery software.