Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot: XP installed last?

[Eric Bohn <bsee_1991@yahoo.com>]

You can also backup and and restore the MBR using the Linux dd program available on the Gentoo LiveCD.

>From http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/saw27/notes/backup-hard-disk-partitions.html :

dd if=/dev/hda of=backup-of-hda-mbr count=1 bs=512 
This stores the first 512 bytes of the disk (contianing the MBR and the primary partition info - i.e. the first four primary entries) into the file "bcakup-of-hda-mbr" which you can then copy to somewhere safe. 
To restore (be careful - this could destroy your existing partition table and with it access to all data on the disk): 
dd if=backup-of-hda-mbr of=/dev/hda 
If you only want to restore the actual MBR code and not the primary partition table entires, just restore the first 446 bytes: dd of=/dev/hda if=backup-of-hda-mbr bs=446 count=1. (Those first 512 bytes are 446 bytes of MBR, then 64 bytes of primary partition table).



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