UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Originally Posted by drak

I read this and nearly had a heart attack... the instructions given above a PLAIN WRONG and will destroy your partitions and data.

To backup the MBR you

dd if=/dev/sda of=mbrbackup bs=512 count=1

to restore the MBR you want to

dd if=mbrbackup of=/dev/sdb bs=446 count=1

If you copy more than 446 you will wipe over the partition tables, which is OK if you are copying to the same disk with the same unchanged partitions.

Whoever you are who wrote what you did, you should be ashamed of yourself for leaving such inaccurate and dangerous information out there.

To everyone else, please double check your DD commands before you use them because you can do irreparable damage. If in double google a few different sources to double and triple check.

Drak