The MBR, or Master Boot Record, is contained in the first sector of a hard disk which consists of only 512

bytes. There is only one MBR per disk. The MBR contai ns three basic items: 1.Master boot code - a short (354 bytes for Vista and Windows 7) assembly langua ge code segment that is responsible for only one task; upon startup of the PC th e code will run and search the partition table for the partition that has the Ac tive flag set, and then it will transfer execution to the first sector of this a ctive partition (or display an error message if there is more than one active pa rtition or no active partition). 2.The Disk Signature - four bytes that uniquely identify the disk to a Windows o perating system. If there is more than one disk in the PC, each disk's signature is supposed to be different. If two are found to be the same, Windows will chan ge one of them and that leads to drive letter reassignment on the changed disk. 3.The Partition Table - 64 bytes that contain information on the location and si ze of the partitions on the disk. I've always found the information on this site: http://thestarman.pcministry.com /asm/mbr/VistaMBR.htm to be helpful with it's nicely-done illustrations of the c ontents of these first 512 bytes on a disk. Keep in mind that when you use the Restore MBR and Track 0 function in Acronis T rue Image, everything in the first 63 sectors, referred to as "Track 0", is res tored except for the partition table. This is an important distinction that need s to be kept in mind. You cannot re-create a partition layout by restoring MBR a nd Track 0 from an image, nor will you affect the size and location of any exist ing disk partitions when restoring the MBR. Each partition's first sector is called a Volume Boot Record (VBR). This sector contains information about the file system, the disk geometry, and a short assem bly language program that runs when the MBR code finishes and control is transfe rred to the VBR. In Windows 7, this short program searches for the file Bootmgr and begins execution of this file. Bootmgr is the program that displays a menu t hat allows you to choose from multiple operating systems but you will not see th e menu if you have only one operating system installed. After an OS choice is made from the Bootmgr menu, it starts the process of loadi ng Windows by loading and executing the file Winload.exe, and off you go. More information about the VBR may be found here: http://thestarman.pcministry.c om/asm/mbr/VistaVBR.htm. Note that both article references are about the Vista M BR and VBR, but Windows 7 is virtually identical. In a standard Windows PC the MBR has very little to do with booting an OS. Remem ber that its only job is to find the active partition and jump there. The usual symptom of a bad MBR is that when you boot the PC, all that you see is a blinkin g cursor in the upper-left corner of the screen. In your case, and for some other brands of PCs, the manufacturers customize the MBR to allow booting into their built-in recovery solution, in your case D2D, wh en some key combination is pressed at startup. These custom MBRs often get inadv ertently replaced by a standard MBR when users do an MBR repair with a Windows D VD or with some other program (did you do an MBR repair with TestDisk?), then th e booting into the recovery environment stops working. I have a Lenovo laptop th at was like that. Their custom MBR was 4 sectors long and allowed recovery of th e factory state of the machine if you pressed F11 while booting the PC. I say "w as" because I got rid of that feature. Having imaging software that allows you t o restore a PC to the way you have it set up and personalized is MUCH more usefu l than restoring to factory state.