Debian Bug report logs - #725417
mbr: install-mbr wipes the disk-id portion of the MBR, rendering Windows 7 unbootable

version graph

Package: mbr; Maintainer for mbr is Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>; Source for mbr is src:mbr (PTS, buildd, popcon).

Reported by: g1 <g1pi@libero.it>

Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2013 14:51:02 UTC

Severity: grave

Tags: patch, upstream

Found in version mbr/1.1.11-5

Fixed in version mbr/1.1.11-5.1

Done: James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

Forwarded to Neil Turton <neilt+mbr@chiark.greenend.org.uk>

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View this report as an mbox folder, status mbox, maintainer mbox


Report forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Sat, 05 Oct 2013 14:51:06 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to g1 <g1pi@libero.it>:
New Bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Sat, 05 Oct 2013 14:51:06 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: g1 <g1pi@libero.it>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: mbr: install-mbr wipes the disk-id portion of the MBR, rendering Windows 7 unbootable
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 16:49:33 +0200
Package: mbr
Version: 1.1.11-5+b1
Severity: important
Tags: upstream

For years, I have run "install-mbr /dev/sda" on every hard disk where
I wanted to install Linux to its own partition, in addition to a
pre-existing Windows partition.  Last time I did, it resulted in an
unbootable Windows 7 system.  Here is what I discovered afterwards:

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record, bytes
440--443 of the MBR are reserved for the Disk Id.  Windows 7 (and likely
also Vista) stores that Id in its Boot Configuration Data (BCD) file,
and fails to boot unless the Id on disk matches the one in the BCD.

The install-mbr program copies the original MBR from disk into RAM,
overwrites the first 512 - 66 == 446 bytes with <internal> code, appends
the original partition table at offset 446, then writes the sector back
to disk.  With the default <internal> code, the Disk Id is changed to
0x00000000, rendering W7 unbootable with overwhelming probability.

I don't know if bytes 440--446 of the <internal> MBR are useful code
or leftover garbage, therefore I'm not able to suggest a patch.
Please consider adding to the man page (and perhaps the executable itself)
a prominent warning against using install-mbr on a disk containing
Windows Vista or later.

For the record, I was able to restore the disk-id by examining the BCD
via hexdump, guessing the original id, and restoring it on disk via the
expert menu of the fdisk utility.  Needless to say, I promptly purged
the mbr package from my system.

Best regards,
	g

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.1
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages mbr depends on:
ii  libc6  2.13-38

mbr recommends no packages.

mbr suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Tue, 17 Dec 2013 18:54:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Tue, 17 Dec 2013 18:54:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #10 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <725417@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: Re: mbr: install-mbr wipes the disk-id portion of the MBR, rendering Windows 7 unbootable
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 22:51:06 +0400
Package: mbr
Version: 1.1.11-5
Followup-For: Bug #725417

Control: severity -1 grave

After re-installing windows8 for 3 or 4 times because it stops working
when I install linux to another partition, I figured out it is the mbr
which makes windows being unable to find itself.

I'm not sure wich versions of windows are affected.  Maybe all using the
new (since vista) BCD code, maybe just some.  It definitely affects win8.

The PBR (partition boot record) from M$ looks for the drive with a given
(hardcoded at the PBR installation time) disk-id to find itself.  Once
found, you can boot windows from there, or run recovery or other stuff.

Even booting from a recovery disk and running commonly used tools like
fixboot and fixmbr does NOT recover the broken windows boot.

Restoring the 4 bytes (440..444) with the disk-id field lets windws to
boot again.

This is not "important".  This is a grave issue really, because it breaks
not only unrelated packages in Debian installation, it breaks other
operating system(s) installed, with a very small chance of recovery by
an average user.

Thanks,

/mjt



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:00:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:00:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #15 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <725417@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: Re: mbr: install-mbr wipes the disk-id portion of the MBR, rendering Windows 7 unbootable
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 22:58:14 +0400
Control: severity -1 grave

Another followup.

When windows 8.1 PBR can't find itself, it displays this message:

 An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't
 contain an operating system.
 Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

Maybe this bugreport together with the message above will help someone else
to find the real cause of his own breakage...

(But it looks like this message is specific to windows8.1, in windows8 PBR
there's no such mesage).

/mjt



Severity set to 'grave' from 'important' Request was from Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru> to 725417-submit@bugs.debian.org. (Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:00:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Reply sent to Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>:
You have marked Bug as forwarded. (Sat, 02 Aug 2014 12:03:18 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #20 received at 725417-forwarded@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>
To: Neil Turton <neilt+mbr@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Cc: 725417-forwarded@bugs.debian.org, g1 <g1pi@libero.it>, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>
Subject: Bug#725417: mbr: install-mbr wipes the disk-id portion of the MBR, rendering Windows 7 unbootable (fwd)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 13:57:53 +0200 (CEST)
Hello.

We have received this report from the Debian bug system.

[ The Debian maintainer, Santiago García, asked me for help to contact
  you, but then I thought that first and foremost, the bug should be
  forwarded "the Debian way". Thanks ].

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: g1 <g1pi@libero.it>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 16:49:33 +0200
Subject: mbr: install-mbr wipes the disk-id portion of the MBR,
    rendering Windows 7 unbootable

Package: mbr
Version: 1.1.11-5+b1
Severity: important
Tags: upstream

For years, I have run "install-mbr /dev/sda" on every hard disk where
I wanted to install Linux to its own partition, in addition to a
pre-existing Windows partition.  Last time I did, it resulted in an
unbootable Windows 7 system.  Here is what I discovered afterwards:

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record, bytes
440--443 of the MBR are reserved for the Disk Id.  Windows 7 (and likely
also Vista) stores that Id in its Boot Configuration Data (BCD) file,
and fails to boot unless the Id on disk matches the one in the BCD.

The install-mbr program copies the original MBR from disk into RAM,
overwrites the first 512 - 66 == 446 bytes with <internal> code, appends
the original partition table at offset 446, then writes the sector back
to disk.  With the default <internal> code, the Disk Id is changed to
0x00000000, rendering W7 unbootable with overwhelming probability.

I don't know if bytes 440--446 of the <internal> MBR are useful code
or leftover garbage, therefore I'm not able to suggest a patch.
Please consider adding to the man page (and perhaps the executable itself)
a prominent warning against using install-mbr on a disk containing
Windows Vista or later.

For the record, I was able to restore the disk-id by examining the BCD
via hexdump, guessing the original id, and restoring it on disk via the
expert menu of the fdisk utility.  Needless to say, I promptly purged
the mbr package from my system.

Best regards,
	g

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.1
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages mbr depends on:
ii  libc6  2.13-38

mbr recommends no packages.

mbr suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 21 Nov 2014 21:48:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Fri, 21 Nov 2014 21:48:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #25 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: This would not be a simple fix
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 16:37:17 -0500
install-mbr's code currently uses bytes 442 to 445 to store the version
of mbr's data structure (currently 2) and the signature.

So to change this would change the data structure format in a totally
non backwards compatible way (so older install-mbr versions would no
longer recognize this as an install-mbr's mbr).

So moving the data structure is almost certainly doable.  Should it be?
Is there a maintainer upstream for this code anymore?

If nothing else, making install-mbr recognize that the existing mbr
contains non zero disk signature in bytes 440 to 443 and either 0000
or 5A5A in bytes 444 to 445 and spitting out a warning that this disk
appears to be in use by a modern MBR using OS, and not just letting you
overwrite it might be a good idea.

-- 
Len Sorensen



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Mon, 24 Nov 2014 09:09:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. (Mon, 24 Nov 2014 09:09:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #30 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>
To: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>, 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#725417: This would not be a simple fix
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 09:58:42 +0100
Hi!

I think this bug can be fixed, at least on the standard version of mbr (not
on the Y2K version, but machines needing that won't run Windows7 or later
anyway).  The problem is that the changes needed point to an upstream
change, that's why I tried to contact Neil, the upstream author, but failing
to do so I tried to do it through Santiago Vila, the previous maintainer,
but he also seems to have failed.

> So to change this would change the data structure format in a totally
> non backwards compatible way (so older install-mbr versions would no
> longer recognize this as an install-mbr's mbr).

That's what I saw and thus I said, this is something to be done by upstream.

> So moving the data structure is almost certainly doable.  Should it be?
> Is there a maintainer upstream for this code anymore?

Well, we haven't been able to contact him at his chiark address and don't
know of any other way to contact him.

> If nothing else, making install-mbr recognize that the existing mbr
> contains non zero disk signature in bytes 440 to 443 and either 0000
> or 5A5A in bytes 444 to 445 and spitting out a warning that this disk
> appears to be in use by a modern MBR using OS, and not just letting you
> overwrite it might be a good idea.

I agree on this as the least we can do to fix this, but I'd rather have an
upstream new binary version of the mbr, as doing it at Debian doesn't seem
the right thing to do.  If finaly agree that we don't have an upstream for
mbr we may then do the changes by ourselves, but I'd like to try to contact
him one more time (I'll do this right now).  Feel free to try to contact
him, I suspect that antispam may be dropping the mails, so maybe you are
more lucky.

If you have it clear, please send patches for this or suggest the new
locations, ...

Here goes one of my last mails to Neil dated 11th July:

Hi!

I have tried to contact you from my Debian account, then from my own
domain and now from gmail, as I saw your servers have very strict
email policies, let's see if this time the mail reaches you :-)

I have received a bug on Debian (https://bugs.debian.org/725417) that
explains that new MS Windows need what is called a Disk signature on
the mbr, and if we use install-mbr to write our mbr this signature
gets changed, and then windows stops booting.

The bugreport talks about 4 bytes, but it is really 6 bytes that need
to be moved away, 6 just before the partition table data.

I started looking at this with the idea of patching this on the non
Y2K version, as this one was already too tight, however even the
normal version seems to be too tight, we had only 5 bytes of padding
space on this version.

On the other hand, on the 6 bytes that are being used for the Disk
signature you had placed the pointer to the data area, so the pointer
should be relocated, this is... unless we don't care about those two
bytes right where we have the pointer, as the signature is right on
the four previous ones and then at 1BC our pointer. This seems to work
ok at least with Windows 7.

The place were we have our signature should be a 0000h word or 5A5Ah
if it is copy protected, at least acording to wikipedia, but Win7
seems to work anyway.

Well, what do you think about all this?

Regards.
-- 
Manty/BestiaTester -> http://manty.net



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Mon, 24 Nov 2014 15:42:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Mon, 24 Nov 2014 15:42:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #35 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
To: Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>
Cc: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#725417: This would not be a simple fix
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 10:39:26 -0500
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 09:58:42AM +0100, Santiago Garcia Mantinan wrote:
> I think this bug can be fixed, at least on the standard version of mbr (not
> on the Y2K version, but machines needing that won't run Windows7 or later
> anyway).  The problem is that the changes needed point to an upstream
> change, that's why I tried to contact Neil, the upstream author, but failing
> to do so I tried to do it through Santiago Vila, the previous maintainer,
> but he also seems to have failed.

It certainly can be fixed.  I am pretty sure I could fix it, but it does
come at the expense of breaking the existing install-mbr interface to
the mbr data.  I too would like to know if there is an upstream and if
so what they think of it.

> That's what I saw and thus I said, this is something to be done by upstream.

If they are still around.  I think for the quik boot loader (old powerpc
loader), Debian essentially is the upstream, although the last code change
appears to be when I patched it to work with newer ext filesystems that
needed more space 4 years ago.

> Well, we haven't been able to contact him at his chiark address and don't
> know of any other way to contact him.
> 
> I agree on this as the least we can do to fix this, but I'd rather have an
> upstream new binary version of the mbr, as doing it at Debian doesn't seem
> the right thing to do.  If finaly agree that we don't have an upstream for
> mbr we may then do the changes by ourselves, but I'd like to try to contact
> him one more time (I'll do this right now).  Feel free to try to contact
> him, I suspect that antispam may be dropping the mails, so maybe you are
> more lucky.
> 
> If you have it clear, please send patches for this or suggest the new
> locations, ...

I have not yet attempted to fix it, but I could do that and submit a
suggestion patch.

> Here goes one of my last mails to Neil dated 11th July:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> I have tried to contact you from my Debian account, then from my own
> domain and now from gmail, as I saw your servers have very strict
> email policies, let's see if this time the mail reaches you :-)
> 
> I have received a bug on Debian (https://bugs.debian.org/725417) that
> explains that new MS Windows need what is called a Disk signature on
> the mbr, and if we use install-mbr to write our mbr this signature
> gets changed, and then windows stops booting.
> 
> The bugreport talks about 4 bytes, but it is really 6 bytes that need
> to be moved away, 6 just before the partition table data.
> 
> I started looking at this with the idea of patching this on the non
> Y2K version, as this one was already too tight, however even the
> normal version seems to be too tight, we had only 5 bytes of padding
> space on this version.
> 
> On the other hand, on the 6 bytes that are being used for the Disk
> signature you had placed the pointer to the data area, so the pointer
> should be relocated, this is... unless we don't care about those two
> bytes right where we have the pointer, as the signature is right on
> the four previous ones and then at 1BC our pointer. This seems to work
> ok at least with Windows 7.
> 
> The place were we have our signature should be a 0000h word or 5A5Ah
> if it is copy protected, at least acording to wikipedia, but Win7
> seems to work anyway.
> 
> Well, what do you think about all this?

Seems reasonable to me.

I see in some searches that some places have contacted at +mbr@chiark,
while the web page there suggests neilt+www@chiark...

It is entirely possible that the chiark page has been forgotten and the
email no longer works of course.

-- 
Len Sorensen



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Sun, 18 Jan 2015 13:06:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Sun, 18 Jan 2015 13:06:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #40 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com>
To: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>, 725417@bugs.debian.org
Cc: Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>
Subject: Re: Bug#725417: This would not be a simple fix
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 13:02:01 +0000
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 10:39:26AM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>
>I see in some searches that some places have contacted at +mbr@chiark,
>while the web page there suggests neilt+www@chiark...
>
>It is entirely possible that the chiark page has been forgotten and the
>email no longer works of course.

Well, as another person with a chiark account I can see that Neil is
still using his login there and has been active in the last
week. Whether or not he's reading email there, I don't know...

I'll prod too.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
"We're the technical experts.  We were hired so that management could
 ignore our recommendations and tell us how to do our jobs."  -- Mike Andrews




Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Thu, 05 Mar 2015 15:54:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Thu, 05 Mar 2015 15:54:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #45 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: [PATCH] Prevent install-mbr from overwriting a modern MBR
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 10:51:53 -0500
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Here is a patch which I believe should detect a modern MBR format
and refuse to overwrite it, and hence avoid breaking windows vista+,
although of course with an option to use --force to do it anyhow.

I did not test it yet since I don't have a system handy that I could
test it on.

Fixing install-mbr to actually support modern MBR format would change
the format and make it incompatible with older versions and is a lot
more work, but at least preventing the breaking of the existing OSs is
pretty simple.

-- 
Len Sorensen
[install-mbr.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

Added tag(s) patch. Request was from Michael Gilbert <mgilbert@debian.org> to control@bugs.debian.org. (Sun, 29 Mar 2015 01:21:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 17 Apr 2015 17:51:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to emmanuel@libera.cc:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Fri, 17 Apr 2015 17:51:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #52 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: emmanuel@libera.cc
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: [PATCH] Prevent install-mbr from overwriting a modern MBR
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 19:48:21 +0200
The patch from Lennart works for me.

Test case:
On a emply mbr

	dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1 count=446

	fdisk -l /dev/sda | grep '^Disk identifier'
	Disk identifier: 0x00000000

	install-mbr /dev/sda

works fine

On a disk with a Windows 7 disk signature
(or created manually with fdisk advanced command)

	fdisk -l /dev/sda | grep '^Disk identifier'
	Disk identifier: 0x743f7f11

	install-mbr:/dev/sda: Probable detection of modern MBR format which is 
currently incompatible with install-mbr.  Installing will probably break 
Windows installations on this system.  Use --force to override.

However ! The problem is that the Windows installer is not the only one 
who adds a Disk Identifier when creating out a partition table. parted 
does that as well, and if applied, the patch breaks vmdebootstrap and 
build-openstack-debian-image, who creates diskimages, partition them 
with parted, and then run install-mbr on the disk image.

So at the moment the only safe alternative I can think of to safely 
install a mbr, is to use the /usr/lib/EXTLINUX/mbr.bin file which comes 
with the extlinux package. It is 440 bytes long and hence do not 
overwrite an existing disk signature.












Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Mon, 18 Jan 2016 09:00:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. (Mon, 18 Jan 2016 09:00:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #57 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Neil's reply
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 09:49:59 +0100
Hi!

Sorry for not updating this, Neil replied at last to my mails with this:

------------------
Hi Santiago,

Sorry for not responding before.  I got half way through replying and
then got distracted.  I'm afraid I don't have the time to maintain the
MBR any more.  I would appreciate it if you could find someone else to
maintain it.

Cheers,
Neil.
------------------

I then asked him how to proceed to fix our problem and he answered:

------------------
It's been 6 years, so I don't remember all that much.  I think you'll
need to change the configuration mechanism as there's a pointer to it
at the end of the MBR.  I can't really remember the details.  Perhaps
it would be sensible to withdraw support for configuring one version
of the MBR using the installer from a different version.  It might be
better to get the configuration details from a config file rather than
the previously installed MBR.

Cheers,
Neil.
------------------

So... first of all, sorry about being a bit missing, I don't seem to find
the time that these things require.  I'm about to upload a new version with
lennart's patch for now, just to avoid breaking other windows installations
and I'll then take a look at how can we give the new mbr format support
(Ideas welcome).

Regards...
-- 
Manty/BestiaTester -> http://manty.net



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Thu, 25 Aug 2016 06:57:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "FedEx International Ground" <john.pennington@metapro.co.jp>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Thu, 25 Aug 2016 06:57:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Thu, 08 Sep 2016 06:27:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "FedEx International MailService" <wallace.workman@xn--80afdfykmtu5j.xn--p1ai>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Thu, 08 Sep 2016 06:27:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:27:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "FedEx Standard Overnight" <leon.mccann@schlz.11121.ru>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:27:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:27:08 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "FedEx Standard Overnight" <leon.mccann@schlz.11121.ru>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:27:08 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Thu, 15 Sep 2016 04:09:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "FedEx Standard Overnight" <roberto.robbins@hottubhideaways.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Thu, 15 Sep 2016 04:09:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 21 Oct 2016 10:15:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Fri, 21 Oct 2016 10:15:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #87 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Bug#725417: mbr: install-mbr wipes the disk-id portion of the MBR, rendering Windows 7 unbootable
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2016 11:14:07 +0100
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Control: tags -1 pending
Control: tags 697332 pending
Control: tags 792126 pending
Control: tags 813671 pending

Hi,

I have uploaded the attached NMU to DELAYED/5 which fixes this bug, the
other 3 bugs reported against mbr, and the associated bugs in Ubuntu.
Please tell me if I should cancel it or delay it longer.

#697332 (FTBFS on m68k, mips64el)
I have used a modified version of the patch posted in this bug report.
The original patch invokes undefined behavior on 64-bit platforms
(reading an int like it was 64-bits wide) so I have modified it slightly
to fix that.

#725417 (this bug)
I have used Lennart's patch to fix this (while not the best solution, it
is better than nothing).

#792126 (VM86 is not supported)
I have disabled the testsuite on all arches. VM86 is no longer supported
on i386 linux.

#813671 (Reading UTC/LOCAL value from wrong file)
I have used the patch already applied in Ubuntu to fix this.

Thanks,
James
[mbr-1.1.11-5.1-nmu.debdiff (text/plain, attachment)]
[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, attachment)]

Added tag(s) pending. Request was from James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org> to 725417-submit@bugs.debian.org. (Fri, 21 Oct 2016 10:15:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 21 Oct 2016 21:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. (Fri, 21 Oct 2016 21:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #94 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Thanks a lot
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2016 23:36:32 +0200
Hi!

I've been preparing a new version of mbr which will change the format and
not overwrite the disk-id, but I have not finished yet and I don't have time
lately, so your upload is very welcome.

Thanks again. Regards.
-- 
Manty/BestiaTester -> http://manty.net



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 21 Oct 2016 23:00:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Fri, 21 Oct 2016 23:00:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #99 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#725417: Thanks a lot
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2016 23:57:18 +0100
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Hi,

On 21/10/16 22:36, Santiago Garcia Mantinan wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I've been preparing a new version of mbr which will change the format and
> not overwrite the disk-id, but I have not finished yet and I don't have time
> lately, so your upload is very welcome.

Great!

If you want, I could reschedule my NMU to skip the delayed queue and go
straight in (I doubt it would make too much difference though).

James

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, attachment)]

Reply sent to James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>:
You have taken responsibility. (Wed, 26 Oct 2016 22:33:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Notification sent to g1 <g1pi@libero.it>:
Bug acknowledged by developer. (Wed, 26 Oct 2016 22:33:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #104 received at 725417-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>
To: 725417-close@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Bug#725417: fixed in mbr 1.1.11-5.1
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2016 22:29:54 +0000
Source: mbr
Source-Version: 1.1.11-5.1

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
mbr, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 725417@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org> (supplier of updated mbr package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Format: 1.8
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2016 10:57:33 +0100
Source: mbr
Binary: mbr mbr-udeb
Architecture: source
Version: 1.1.11-5.1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>
Changed-By: James Cowgill <jcowgill@debian.org>
Description:
 mbr        - Master Boot Record for IBM-PC compatible computers.
 mbr-udeb   - Master Boot Record for IBM-PC compatible computers (udeb)
Closes: 697332 725417 792126 813671
Changes:
 mbr (1.1.11-5.1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Non-maintainer upload.
   * Disable testsuite on all archs. (Closes: #792126, LP: #445643)
 .
   [ Dejan Latinovic ]
   * Fix FTBFS on ia64, m68k and mips64el by using xxd instead of ld.
     (Closes: #697332)
 .
   [ Lannart Sorensen ]
   * Prevent install-mbr from wiping new style MBRs.
     (Closes: #725417, LP: #814956)
 .
   [ Martin Pitt ]
   * Read UTC setting from /etc/adjtime instead of /etc/default/rcS.
     (Closes: #813671)
Checksums-Sha1:
 9e067d0ff033b75a2019bfe5bdb4bcb72f8ba68e 1697 mbr_1.1.11-5.1.dsc
 f8a7a151dbfc3db4793c5bd666ac635d3cb2fbd5 9738 mbr_1.1.11-5.1.diff.gz
Checksums-Sha256:
 94f20129f3a8c7738728d2ac4670cdeaf7c71e22b0270b0d58e8d8fb33d0495e 1697 mbr_1.1.11-5.1.dsc
 0818f6dfec92f16d0ca8d9e1caddb905b445e158fa1999014c91142d65b48575 9738 mbr_1.1.11-5.1.diff.gz
Files:
 55b7afd4a9a7f613a628406f9e0fa1cb 1697 admin optional mbr_1.1.11-5.1.dsc
 7134f43e3df190e7b233ab4e02cedb8b 9738 admin optional mbr_1.1.11-5.1.diff.gz

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Bug archived. Request was from Debbugs Internal Request <owner@bugs.debian.org> to internal_control@bugs.debian.org. (Mon, 05 Dec 2016 08:07:43 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Bug unarchived. Request was from Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> to control@bugs.debian.org. (Wed, 07 Dec 2016 01:36:41 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>:
Bug#725417; Package mbr. (Fri, 23 Dec 2016 01:51:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to "USPS Priority Parcels" <ray.nielsen@circuitosporchina.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>. (Fri, 23 Dec 2016 01:51:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #113 received at 725417@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "USPS Priority Parcels" <ray.nielsen@circuitosporchina.com>
To: 725417@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Notification status of your delivery (USPS 05589197)
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 01:30:33 +0000
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Dear Customer,

Your item has arrived at December 19, but our courier was not able to deliver the parcel.

Please check delivery label attached!

Yours truly,
Ray Nielsen,
USPS Office Clerk.

[Delivery-Details-05589197.zip (application/zip, attachment)]

Bug archived. Request was from Debbugs Internal Request <owner@bugs.debian.org> to internal_control@bugs.debian.org. (Sun, 16 Jul 2017 07:32:01 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


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