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Bootsector copies with dd

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Name: hackmiester
Date: November 19, 2006 at 17:48:03 Pacific
OS: (none)
CPU/Ram: 1500mHz Intel Centrino (B
Product: IBM R51 (Type 1830-AHU)
Comment:

How can I make a backup of my hard disk's boot sector with dd? I've done this, but I seem to have grabbed the partition table as well, by mistake. I just want the boot loader.

The reason is, I want to install Microsoft Windows XP, but I am almost positive it's gonna botch the boot loader I have installed and I want to restore it later.



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Response Number 1
Name: Sabertooth
Date: November 19, 2006 at 18:51:04 Pacific
Reply:

I am not familiar with dd, hopefully someone that does will come along.

What I do know is this, if you butcher your XP boot routine, you can always run Fdisk /mbr from the recovery console to rewrite the MBR.

Goodluck!


0

Response Number 2
Name: LinuxOS2
Date: November 20, 2006 at 06:22:49 Pacific
Reply:

Might want to try this:

To backup the boot sector:
dd if=/dev/hda of=backup.boot bs=512 count=1
To restore the boot sector:
dd if=backup.boot of=/dev/hda bs=1

Here are some links that delv into the workings of dd :

http://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...
http://linuxweblog.com/node/236

Keep the old stuff running


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Response Number 3
Name: hackmiester
Date: November 23, 2006 at 07:02:13 Pacific
Reply:

:D

Thanks both of you :)

--hackmiester


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Response Number 4
Name: LinuxOS2
Date: November 23, 2006 at 07:42:46 Pacific
Reply:

You got it, how did things work out ?

Keep the old stuff running


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Response Number 5
Name: hackmiester
Date: November 27, 2006 at 17:28:57 Pacific
Reply:

I was able to copy the Windoze bootloader to a spare disk and it worked. Thanks again :D

--hackmiester


0

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