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How can I wipe the Master Boot Record?
John Savill
January 8, 2000
2 Min Read
A. The normal method is using the DOS FDISK command:
C:> fdisk /mbr
however there are some cases where this does not work and a more directmethod may be needed.
A program called DEBUG.EXE is supplied with DOS, Windows 9x and NT and can beused to run small Assembly language programs and just such a program can be usedto wipe the MBR. Perform the following, but BE CAREFUL, this WILL wipe your MBRleaving your system unbootable and its data lost.
Boot to 9x or DOS (this cannot be done from NT since direct disk access is not allowed)
Start a command prompt
Enter the following commands (in bold):
C:> debug
-F 9000:0 L 200 0
-a
0C5A:0100 Mov dx,9000
0C5A:0103 Mov es,dx
0C5A:0105 Xor bx,bx
0C5A:0107 Mov cx,0001
0C5A:0109 Mov dx,0080
0C5A:010A Mov ax,0301
0C5A:010D Int 13
0C5A:0110 Int 20
-u 100 L 12
-g
Program terminated normally
-quit
Click here to view image
You can now install a replacement MBR via a normal installation.
Thanks to Mark Minasi for giving permission to reproduce this Assemblercode and a full explanation can be found in Windows NT Magazine Summer 1999issue
Another method from David Lynch:
C:> debug
-a
xxxx:0100 mov ax,0301
xxxx:01xx mov cx,1
xxxx:01xx mov dx,80
xxxx:01xx int 13
xxxx:01xx int 3
xxxx:01xx
-GThis is much shorter. It has 2 theoretically possible failure cases
ES:BX accidentally and randomly points to a valid MBR. This is extremely unlikely and probably technically impossible. I ES:BX is initialized when debug starts. BX is normally the high part of the length of the file being debugged and I think therefore 0 if there is nor file and I think ES is the same as DS, SS, CS by default.
The 510th word pointed to by ES:BX is AA55. I do not know what the probability is here but it is at least 1/64K Further even if this is the case it still may not fail, just subsequent attempts to format the drive will believe there is a valid though maybe unusual MBR.
There is nothing special about filling the MBR with 0's. It just need to not be valid. Any invalid MBR is the same as no MBR.
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