Ok folks I have a rather unique issue. I have a drive that go back is/was installed on before this repair. Note I said "is/was"! GOback has been un-installed many times all which "seemed" successful. As in no error messages at all in the process of the uninstall. As you may be aware, goback takes the control of the mbr (more like hostage in my case) and does not allow writing to it. I have tried all ways to remove the write protection with no luck or changes at all. For instance, I used the gb_prog /u which when go back has been damaged, "should" in theory remove the control of the mbr. Its claims its has successfully un-installed, then you reboot and its back active again. I have a fairly good knowledge of circumventing issues like this b4, but non to this degree. I have attempted PTedit to change the partition type, Maxtor's low level format util, pqmagic delete of the "type44" partition, even a reformat on the Apple Mac side using Disk Utility. I even had a friend write some code on the assembly level to gain access to the mbr to wipe it with no luck. Please post some thoughts on this matter as it is very frustrating not being able to get this done. All I want to do is nuke everything on the drive, and start from scratch. I want to wipe everything by absolutely any means necessary that wont damage the drive itself. Once i gain the access I need then I will do the standard of writing zeros, testing and preparing the drive for usage. Any help and thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Xavien
Sr Network Administrator

Hi,

what is the model of the drive?

pepe

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Samsung 80GB, 2.5 ide laptop harddrive, not sure the model. Am I missing something?

I would use an old DOS utility called diskedit by Norton Utilities there is an ability to view the physical hard drive, at which point you can write FF to every single byte of the MBR. You certainly don't need to use assembly to send vender specific commands to your HD. There is even a Microsoft KB article on using diskedit to backup your MBR here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/166997. Any version of the Norton Systemworks or Norton Utilities CD still has this DOS program on the CD or maybe you can find it in the wild. If all else fails I can send it to you too. Good Luck!

Awesome! Thanks for the info I appreciate that and will try that. Its funny how u mention that, casue I tried ptedit by symantec/powerquest. Some thought by changing the type "44" to a standard ntfs would give me control back. Unfortunatly it didnt, again write protection. It seems that I have to circumvent the protection first, then can deal with all else afterwards. Do you think that disk edit will allow to circumvent such a protection?

Hi,

I was thinking U are having a seagate, those ones sometimes get corrupted in their firmware causing the whole drive to seem to be write protected - and this is just a problem with writing.
But I have never experienced this kind of problem with samsungs...
Who knows ...

pepe

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Yeah by no means its that kinda issue. Go Back was/has been on the drive. Drives test perfectly, and to a degree boots into the os. However like many windows it has been trashed and needs to be reloaded. I would not send this unit back out again without completely zero'ing the drive to wipe previous data and prevent recovery.

Unless the firmware of the HDD or a jumper on it is write protecting the hard drive, any software, GoBack or otherwise needs to be loaded in some form in order to prevent changes. I would be interested in a link to what GoBack is doing technically, because it's kind of amazing that it's giving you so many problems. The only thing I can think of is you're experiencing something akin to formating a drive for Windows after it's already been formatted for *nix. Because *nix writes to the HD sectors earlier than Windows it will still load a piece of the file system and a Windows format can't correct this. But if you load diskedit after booting from a Win98se boot disk or something similar I can assure you unless GoBack sent instructions to your BIOS to write protect your HDD you will be able to rid yourself of whatever the hell it is

Yeah midden, ur right! I would love to talk to someone over at goback in person, so that after I strangle them. WHen they are conscience again, I can query them how they made this so ruff. The idea as i understand it it to protect the customer so that if virus or whatever hits it, on the deepest level they can protect the file to be put back to the previous session b4 the incident. However, if go back itself is broken, then it kinda leaves ur drive no good. See I can prob reformat, but I cannot touch the mbr. So goback will continue its irritating behavior until its resolve. There is clearly no jumper or anything. I want to make it clear, this is for sure not a hardware issue! There is no bios protect as this drive has been in 9 machines. I'm about to call this drive the prostitute! Haha, anyway...I believe someone with deeper drive knowledge may be needed. Anyone know mbr more intimately?

Try NTExplorer from runtime.org , load as raw and zero fill the drive ..
If that doesn't work , try hdderase software-f7/hdderase-v3-2-t7246.html

Hi,

when U tried MHDD, did U boot from this HDD, or a floppy or CD?

pepe

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Floppy of course without any tsr's....

I think your problem is giving you tunnel vision, the MBR is just data like any other. I do know the MBR intimately, all you want to do is wipe it out... Diskedit will do that as will the programs that Steve mentioned. Don't knock it till you try it

Ok folks another program bites the dust! Attempted the secure erase program (hdderase). Executes fine, ran the secure erase. Job completes without errors. But then at the very end, when it tries to write to LBA 0, it fails on the write. Now I just wanna clear up that it has been proven that regardless of what program is used it will (through conventional methods) fail to write to the MBR because it is write protected. I think alot of the post, although very helpful in attempt, will always fail because we are not dealing with the direct issue of the mbr being write protected. I need to unprotect the mbr, and all these efforts will be successful. Any thoughts, anyone??

PS: I will try the disk edit midden, thanks for the vote of confidence, this problem is driving me to drink Let u know how I make out! I didn't understand the NTexplorer line, if it has to be ran in windows, then thats no good, windows is broken (what a surprise) I will Google diskedit and see where i make out. If I'm mistaken, please clarify the suggestion, thanks!

U should use some disk editor in pure DOS cleanly booted from floppy created on an OTHER COMPUTER, other system that never had GoBack!
try writing to other places of the disk - various sectors at beginning, middle, end of LBA range- and see if U can read the modified sectors back.
If the 'write protection' is on the entire surface or at least at several places, U probably have a defective drive, or IDE cable/controller.
If it is only the MBR (LBA0) U cannot write to/alter, I dunno, either kick the drive along the street or put it onto the wall as a really unique drive

pepe

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