Mbrwhisky : A Mbrwiz 2.x Gui, Fix and repair Options

[ReD]

MBRWizard is designed as a Master Boot Record management utility program to directly update and modify the MBR. I worked (as beta tester) with Roger (who maintains the MbrWizard) on that newest release. It's quite stable right now even if its status is still beta.

This 2.x version add a lot of new features:

Partition Modification
Delete Partitions
Hide/Unhide Partitions
Set Bootable/Active Partition
Change Partition Type

MBR Operations
Backup/Save MBR, Head, or individual sectors
Restore MBR, Head, or other sectors from file
Delete MBR, or Wipe all sectors on first head
Fix MBR due to damage or corruption
Copy Sectors
Clear or write a new disk signature
Sort partition table entries. Designed to match Windows boot.ini entries

Additional Functionality
Mount volumes within Windows
DisMount volumes
Modify Volume Label
Securely wipe entire disk
Boot Menu- Quick menu allowing user to select bootable partition
Shutdown/Reboot the machine
Create ini file containing the structured contents of the MBR
Read/Write a Status byte in the MBR

I designed a GUI (MbrWhisky) to simplify the use of this great tools.

MBRWizard 2.x home page :
http://www.geocities.com/mbrwizard/

MbrWhisky and plugin :
http://red.boot-land.net/index.html

I hope you will enjoy this release and post a little comment about it (as it is my first release)

CODE

dd MM YYYY
22 03 2006 : Initial release (0.6)
11 04 2006 : MbrWiz updated > added the newest version to the plugin
12 05 2006 : MbrWhisky updated (0.6.1)
                   - New compression using latest UPX stable version
                   - Some small GUI improvement (added ALT + D, ALT + P, ALT+ E to access menu, and some other little things)
                   - Compiled a 96DPI version for those addicted to big font;)
09 07 2006 : MbrWiz updated > added the newest version to the plugin
10 10 2006 : MbrWhisky updated ( 0.7.3a)
                   - Fixed a bug
                   - Some code cleaning and optimizing
                   - GUI enhancement
                   - Fully graphical CHKDSK support (tested with US/UK/FR system)
                   (will not work with all language see home page about that)
09 08 2007 : MbrWhisky updated ( 0.7.4)
                   - Fixed some small bugs about the chkdsk part
                   - Added a better handling of chkdsk msg
                   - Added support for the German language. (chkdsk)

This post has been edited by ReD: Aug 18 2007, 06:00 AM

[alex11]

i can't exctract from archive

[SteelTrepid]

The "whisky" site won't even load on my end.....taking to long to respond??

BTW- is that really the homepage for MBRWizard?

[ReD]

@steeltrepid
the 1st link i gave is the home page for MBRWizard

The second was where my files were hosted but it seems that the server is down I will host the files to another place and give you a new link after my day work today.

[ReD]

Finally, i decided to host myself those files! So you can grab them from my personal ftp.
I do not have a huge broadband but it should do the job. (So limited anonymous connection allowed simultaneously)

i've updated the download link on the first message.

Please, tell me if it's ok now.

[philon]

The link is ok. The GUI looks nice.

philon

[mbarnes]

Hi ReD

I downloaded the file from your ftp site at 10:12am and used winrar to extract the file

Thanks for the gui

regards

Mike Barnes

[alex11]

Hi ReD

Very nice GUI
thanks

[SteelTrepid]

Thanks for fixing the link. It does look very nice!

[oscar]

@ReD

My HD partitions are

1 FAT32 (the bootable active partition)
1 NTFS
3 linux (ext3)
1 linux swap


MBRwhisky recognizes only the FAT32 partition and all the others as one block OF-EXTEND type partition

What about the NTFS and linux partitions that are inside the extended partitions?


Best regards,

[ReD]

First of all, many thanks to all of you for your feedback

@Oscar
I don't have tested the prog with Linux partitions. (lack of time) i will tomorrow

About Fat and NTFS, it works on my test PC. (i will check if it's not an issue with extended partitions)

To confirm that it's a MbrWiz issue (and not a GUI one) can you test, in a cmd box, the command line that appears at the 'status bar' and tell me if the display is the same?

If yes, i will mail Roger to report this bug. (He doesn't have a lot of spare time by now)
If not i will upate the GUI.

Best regards

[oscar]

solved... there is not a bug, by default "there is no logical partition support"


This is from mbrwizard main page

! Notice

Only Primary and Extended partitions can be displayed and modified by MBRWiz. There is no logical partition support.

[jaclaz]

@oscar
@ReD

That is NOT a bug of MBRwizard, but rather a "by design" feature.

Roger has been clear about this, the tool is not a "generic" Partition tool, it ONLY applies to MBR.
In the MBR there is ONLY a pointer to the EXTENDED Partition beginning.

Inside the EXTENDED Partition there is one (or more) Partition Tables that link to the LOGICAL VOLUMES inside it.

As MBRwizard ONLY access the MBR, i.e. the first 512 bytes of a Physical Volume, it has NO way to "see" what is inside the EXTENDED Partition.

The hard disk oscar has can be represented as following:

CODE

MBR
|
PRIMARY PARTITION (FAT32)
|
EXTENDED PARTITION_________
                           |
                           Logical Volume#0 (NTFS)
                           |
                           Logical Volume#1 (ext3)
                           |
                           Logical Volume#2 (ext3)
                           |
                           Logical Volume#3 (ext3)
                           |
                           Logical Volume#4 (linux swap)

jaclaz

P.S.: sorry, oscar, cross-posting

[Nuno Brito]

Your GUI works like a charm, I didn't knew MBRWiz before..


I'm going to add your application into scriptPack, I hope you don't mind I think you really done a nice tool!

Keep up this good development, it sure looks to be worth it!

[ReD]

Thanks for your feedback.

You can add it into scriptPack, no problemo.

I have updated the plugin since MbrWizard has been modified. (MbrWhisky stay 0.6 since there's no need to update it to handle the new version of mbrwizard)

[cool400]

Thanks, great work!!!

Best regards

cool400

[Adric]

Finally, i decided to host myself those files! So you can grab them from my personal ftp.
I do not have a huge broadband but it should do the job. (So limited anonymous connection allowed simultaneously)

i've updated the download link on the first message.

Please, tell me if it's ok now.

Hi,

I'm getting an alert msg "425 Can't open data connection." when I try ftp://redflag.dyndns.org:1973/
Is there somewhere else I can get the MBRWhisky GUI from?

Thanks, al

[Nuno Brito]

Hi,

I'm getting an alert msg "425 Can't open data connection." when I try ftp://redflag.dyndns.org:1973/
Is there somewhere else I can get the MBRWhisky GUI from?

Thanks, al

If you need an alternative source to the latest version, I've included MBR whisky inside the scriptPack from http://scripts.pt.vu - it's archived in .script format, but you can use batcher to extract the files you need from it..

[ReD]

i had to update the firmware's router, so downtime occurs. Everything should be ok now, can you confirm?

thanks.

[Adric]

i had to update the firmware's router, so downtime occurs. Everything should be ok now, can you confirm?

thanks.

Still getting same error message via http. If I try

E:\PestUpdates>wget ftp://redflag.dyndns.org:1973/MbrWiz.7z
--17:10:01-- ftp://redflag.dyndns.org:1973/MbrWiz.7z
=> `MbrWiz.7z'
Resolving redflag.dyndns.org... 83.179.159.126
Connecting to redflag.dyndns.org[83.179.159.126]:1973... connected.
Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
==> SYST ... done. ==> PWD ... done.
==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR MbrWiz.7z ... done.

but it doesn't download and the session is hung.

Al

If you need an alternative source to the latest version, I've included MBR whisky inside the scriptPack from http://scripts.pt.vu - it's archived in .script format, but you can use batcher to extract the files you need from it..

As a matter of fact, I did download scriptpack 116 prior to posting here, but it wasn't obvious from the list, so here I am

scriptpack116/apps/
scriptpack116/apps/currentprocess.zip
scriptpack116/apps/dubarondiskimage.zip
scriptpack116/apps/monitortest.zip
scriptpack116/apps/passwordrenew.zip
scriptpack116/apps/scdwriter.zip
scriptpack116/filemanager/
scriptpack116/filemanager/A43.zip
scriptpack116/other/
scriptpack116/other/shell_CMD.zip
scriptpack116/other/testing/
scriptpack116/other/testing/bartpein36mb.zip
scriptpack116/other/testing/upxCompact.zip
scriptpack116/shell/
scriptpack116/shell/XobLite-Neue_v1.1.zip
scriptpack116/standard/
scriptpack116/standard/bartpein49mb.zip
scriptpack116/standard/qEmu.zip
scriptpack116/standard/ReduceTxtSetup.zip
scriptpack116/tools/j
scriptpack116/tools/chkdsk.zip
scriptpack116/tools/format.zip
scriptpack116/tools/regedit.zip
scriptpack116/tweaks/
scriptpack116/tweaks/display1024x768.script
scriptpack116/tweaks/display1024x768.zip

Al