I wonder if anyone can help, I recently switched on my windows xp sp2 on my dell pc, to be met with this msg "Loading pbr for descriptor 2, done" "bad pbr" I cannot access the operating system at all, and I do not have accesss to the winxp installation cd, or repair cd, I have tried rebooting with all wireless devices (mouse and keyboard) removed, but still the same msg "Loading pbr for descriptor 2, done, bad pbr" Any help on how to fix this will be greatly appreciated, only thing I can access is pressing F2 and going into the bios options, and selecting which device to boot from, the default is the sata drive, but as always the same error msg.

Ooops! That usually happens only on DELL systems. This is because they have 3partitions:
- A Hidden Dell Utility Partition
- The OS Partition (Windows)
- A hidden Dell PC Restore Partition

The error you are getting is due to a corrupt boot record.

Try this:
1- Start up the computer and click F12 to give you the boot-up options.
2- Insert Windows Installation/Recovery CD into CDROM, choose CDROM boot option and click enter.
3- Let the installation process continue until it prompts you "Press R to repair". . .this should then take you into the DOS mode.
4- Type in FIXBOOT and when prompted, press "Y" to start creating the new boot partition. If everything goes right, you should get a message saying the partition was corrupted and a new one was created successfully.
5- Remove the CD and reboot your system, everything SHOULD be ok now.

N.B: Dont try a FIXMBR or you'll loose you hidden dell partitions, meaning if you haven't backed it up onto DVD, you cant go back to the original factory settings if you ever need to.

Is there any other option if I do not have access to a windows xp repair/installation cd?

Yes, there are numerous 3rd party disk utilities out there that you can use to fix the boot sector (eg: Hiren BootCD). But I can only guarantee the XP installation method. That's the one I have used over and over again.

I could look into the Hiren BootCD option for you, but that would be in the morning! Got to catch me some sleep now

I managed to find the windows xp repair cd, after following your instructions, I am now met with "A disk read error occurred press control alt and delete to restart" I am met with the same error msg on pressing control alt and delete to restart.

"Disk read error"?
I guess its your drive that has a fault. . .physical

The procedure I stated above was the exact one I used on a colleagues DELL laptop, and everything came back to normal!

I'll suggest you take out the drive and use an external USB connector, the run a recovery tool(GetDataBackNTFS on HIREN's BootCD is very good and free) to get your files out. . .if they mean sooooo much to you.

So sorry I cant be of much help after this.

I have the same problem.

When I start up my computer it reads "loading PBR for descriptor 2: done Bad PBR"

I've tried using the windows installation cd but when it takes me to the setup/"press R to repair" page, and I press R it says "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer." My only option then is to press F3 and go back to the "loading PBR, " page.

If you have any suggestions I would really appreciate it. I'm not good with computers and even DELL support has been shrugging their shoulders at me.