Patent ID: 7475278

Claim:
A method for correcting a formatting data error in a boot sector of a hard disk drive of a data processing system, said method comprising: discovering a formatting error in a first formatting data in a boot sector of a first hard disk drive of a data processing system, wherein said first formatting data includes a first partition table information of said first hard disk drive; extracting from a second hard disk drive of said data processing system storing second data a second formatting data and transferring said second formatting data to a formatting modification storage unit, wherein said second formatting data includes a second partition table information of said second hard disk drive, wherein said first partition table information is nonidentical to said second partition table information before a formatting data error is present in said boot sector of said first hard disk drive; replacing in said boot sector of said first hard disk drive said erroneous first formatting data with formatting data modified within said formatting modification storage unit using template information derived from said second formatting data; and storing first data in said first hard disk drive with said formatting data modified within said formatting modification unit using said template information derived from said second formatting data, wherein said first data is different from said second data, wherein said formatting data error is an error in a sector of said first hard disk drive that stores partition table information.