Backup and Restor MBR

[Hadders]

Vivek J. Patankar wrote:
> On 12/10/06, Hadders <fedora at workingwithit.com> wrote:
>> > # dd if=/dev/hda of=/path/filename bs=512 count=1
>> I would assume I can just reverse the input file (if) and output file
>> (of) statements to restore?
>
> I had used dd to take a backup of my FC5 setup before a "clean
> install" upgrade to FC6. I took the MBR, / & /boot partitions. I left
> /home intact. Fortnately FC6 didn't cause any problems, and I did not
> have to restore. But I guess it should work. But a second opinion
> about restore would be needed.
> Alternatively, you can use the dd'ed MBR file to call grub from within
> boot.ini of windows. I have done that before on dual boot systems
> who's grub got overwritten. It's a less used alternative (provided you
> have a backup of the MBR) to booting into rescue and doing a
> grub-install.
>
I've been using the second method for some time now. It works okay, but 
is restrictive as NTLoader is not very sophisticated.
This can't be used with Vista, as Vista changes how it works.

Still, I did find that going back to Grub works fine, and you can boot, 
XP, Vista and of course Linux.

I just wondered if 512bytes was enough to get the whole MBR? If it is, 
then restore should work, no probs.

H