I am not talking about the Master Boot Record (MBR) which is located on the
very first sector of a physical hard disk - I am talking about the Boot
Sector which is located at the very beginning of the installed partition -
the actual Windows Boot Sector code is 16 sectors

http://thestarman.dan123.com/asm/mbr/NTFSBR.htm

"Steve N." wrote:

> Howard wrote:
> > Thanks for your reply
> >
> > However, neither Windows Disk Management or Partition Magic is capable of
> > erasing a partition completely
> >
> > It seems like the only erasing activity that Windows Disk Management does is
> > simply to erase the Master File Table
> >
> > Partition Magic "Delete and Secure Erase" option does more - certainly takes
> > a lot longer - but it does not remove Windows Boot Sector code when the
> > selected partition to be deleted / erased was a Windows XP partition
> >
> > Here is one way you can test to see if an application / tool is capable of
> > erasing a Windows Boot Sector code
> >
> > Take a fully erased hard drive (written to zero's) using an appropriate DOS
> > application / tool and partition the hard drive into four (4) primary visable
> > NTFS partitions using Partition Magic (DOS)
> >
> > Boot into each partition by changing which drive is Active - use Partition
> > Magic to change the Active partition
> >
> > On each boot, you will probably only get a blinking cursor - no error message
> >
> > Next, insert your Windows XP installation disk and use said disk to boot
> > into "Windows Recovery Console"
> >
> > Use the "FIXBOOT" command and write Windows Boot Sector code to all four
> > partitions
> >
> > Reboot the computer into all four partitions using Partition Magic DOS to
> > change the Active partitions
> >
> > You will now get the following error message on each boot
> >
> > "NTLDR is missing
> > Press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart"
> >
> > Next, use your Windows XP installation disk and install Windows XP on the
> > first primary partition
> >
> > From the first partition, if you attempt to delete one of the other three
> > partitions using Windows Disk Management and then recreate the same partition
> > using same Windows Disk Management and then boot into said deleted /
> > recreated partition by using Partition Magic DOS to change the Active
> > partition, you will get the same error message which means that the Boot
> > Sector code was not erased during said deletion activity
> >
> > Note: Windows Disk Management does not write a so called complete Windows
> > Boot Sector code to a partition when it formats a partition - A complete
> > Windows Boot Sector code is actually more than one sector -
> >
> > You can test this by doing the same setup
> >
> > Create four fully erased primary partitions
> >
> > Install Windows XP in the first partition
> >
> > Use Windows Disk Management to format the other three partitions
> >
> > Boot into each partition, using Partition Magic DOS to change the Active
> > partition
> >
> > You will not get the previous mentioned error message
> >
> > "NTLDR is missing
> > Press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart"
> >
> > which means that Windows Boot Sector code was not written to said partitions
> > during Windows Disk Management formatting process
> >
> > All of the above is also true if you attempt to use Partition Magic (Windows
> > or DOS version) to delete / erase a Windows XP partition - it doesn't erase
> > the Boot Sector code
> >
>
> There is but one MBR per physical disk. Each partition does not contain
> its own MBR, rather the one MBR for the disk contains the data about the
> partitions. Perhaps you might want to look into something like MBRWork:
>
> http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html
>
> Steve N.
>
>