What is MBR?
MBR (master boot record) is the information stored in the first sector of a hard disk drive. This is the information read by the CPU when you boot into your PC. MBR contains the boot code and information about the logical partitions. When we power on a computer, it accesses MBR which in turns tells the CPU where the operating system is stored and the booting process of the operating system begins. MBR has been largely replaced by the newer GPT but older computers still have hard disk drives using MBR.
How MBR can get damaged?
MBR is very easily damaged because of a number of reasons. If you do not shutdown a Windows PC properly and just switch the power off, then the MBR might get corrupted. Moreover malware infections can overwrite the MBR and either render a system unbootable or make it load a memory resident virus. In these situations the MBR must be quickly repaired for it to function properly.
How MBRCheck can check and fix MBR?
MBRCheck is a small command line software that can examine the MBR all the partitions of a hard disk drive. It can then tell you if your partitions have a standard and legitimate MBR or whether it is unknown or probably infected by a malware.
Using MBRCheck is pretty easy but it should never be run if you have GPT style disk. All you have to do is double-click on it and it will automatically find all the hard disk drives in order to scan the MBR of all of their partitions. If it detects an unknown MBR then it will give you three options – dump the MBR to a file for further analysis, restore the MBR using a standard boot code and exit.
You can download MBRCheck from https://ad13.geekstogo.com/MBRCheck.exe.