The MBR contains the Partition Table, however when you do an fdisk /mbr, it only overwrites the boot code of the MBR, and leaves the partition table unchanged. Both the boot code and the PT are ...

The partition table configuration on a physical hard disk is standardized by GPT, which employs globally unique identifiers (GUID). Another type of partition table is the MBR.

The MBR contains boot code, a partition table, and a signature value. The boot code contains the instructions that tell the computer how to process the partition table and locate the operating system.

This will first display the registered partition details, if possible, before allowing you to perform a quick search for the table configuration within the data on the drive.

Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET The first of these is the "fdisk" tool, which is geared toward managing DOS-formatted drives, but can be used to initialize the drive with an MBR partition table.

The MBR disks use the standard BIOS partition table, which is commonly known as a legacy mode. On the other hand, GPT disks use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) mode in BIOS.

Attempting to sync the partitions in step 5 doesn't work, it says the MBR partition table is invalid and overlaps. If I go ahead and write changes my Mac is no longer bootable.

You can see what happens with the partition table after the system is infected with TDL4 in the figure below. As a result of these manipulations, the MBR code remains untouched.

To begin with, operating systems such as Microsoft Windows — including Windows 7 — tend to use a Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table arrangement as their standard.

The partition table configuration on a physical hard disk is standardized by GPT, which employs globally unique identifiers (GUID). Another type of partition table is the MBR.