how can I backup MBR, partition table etc?

Is there a FREE program that will backup and restore my MBR, Partition Table etc?

 

Hello,

TestDisk:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Mrk

P.S. Did you perhaps mean backup in "peace" time? Well, there's the Linux command dd, which allows you to copy sector by sector, so if run from a live CD, it would do the trick...

See my GRUB tutorial for more details ... and try the man page for dd. Furthermore, any live CD will do...

 

THanks, testdisk seems good But I don't think it backs up the MBR. Does it? The website only mentions Partition tables, not the MBR.

 

Hello,
It will do ...
Cheers,
Mrk

 

Go YONDER then scroll down to HDHacker -- it will do what you want -- sweet & free...

 

MBRWork.

http://members.shaw.ca/LeesPlace/mbrwork.htm

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm

 

HDHacker was exactly what I wanted I think. Works well and easy to use. But there's one thing that I am not sure about.......When I power on my HP laptop, at the bottom of the screen I see some text.

it says:

Press F-9 to enter SETUP, Press F-11 to enter HP Recovery.

Is this information stored in the MBR or somewhere else? I assume this is written by hewlett packard for all their Laptops so we can enter BIOS and Recovery Mode that loads the HDD image they created to restore in case of emergency.

So if I installed GRUB or something else like that, would that destroy my ability to use F-11 and F-9 etc and destroy all that text at the bottom of the screen?

And will use HDHacker help if this happens, by restoring the MBR that HDHacker saved?

When I used HDHacker to backp MBR on HardDisk0, I looked inside the saved file, and it contains some text and a lot of data code. But part of the text says, "uDè|ÿu;ë=f3ÒèDÿº Press F11 for Emergency Recovery&&& NULs a key"

 

@truthseeker
You're posting all these interesting q's re VMWare, backing up here and there, saving your windows partitions, installing Linux.
It's sort of possible to see what you might be thinking

Why dont you start a thread after considering all your plans and agenda.

As you see, there are a couple of really experienced members here ( not me ) wrt imaging/restores, linux install, dual booting, Grub, partitioning: you will get lots of tips.

regards.

 

I use this batch file with MBRWiz on my 4 drives. You can edit that to suit your own purpose.

Code:

echo=on
mbrwiz /disk=0 /save=temp\mbr0-programs.dat
mbrwiz /disk=1 /save=temp\mbr1-system2.dat
mbrwiz /disk=2 /save=temp\mbr2-backup.dat
mbrwiz /disk=3 /save=temp\mbr3-system.dat
mbrwiz /disk=0 /Sector=HEAD /save=temp\head0-programs.dat
mbrwiz /disk=1 /Sector=HEAD /save=temp\head1-system2.dat
mbrwiz /disk=2 /Sector=HEAD /save=temp\head2-backup.dat
mbrwiz /disk=3 /Sector=HEAD /save=temp\head3-system.dat

@For /F "tokens=2,3,4 delims=/ " %%A in ('Date /t') do @( 
	Set Month=%%A
	Set Day=%%B
	Set Year=%%C
)

@echo DAY = %Day%
@echo Month = %Month%
@echo Year = %Year%

mkdir F:\Backup\MBR\%month%-%day%-%year%
move temp\*.dat F:\Backup\MBR\%month%-%day%-%year%

 

It's not free, but for the price the latest Acronis True Image is worth it !
(I suppose price may depend on where you live). I don't have the latest version, only version 8, and making a full image is very quick and easy. I think everything on the harddisk (at least in version is included.

 

What are you saying? lol What I might be thinking? Agenda?

The reason I am asking is because I want to get Linux up and running, the safest and easiest way possible. Preferably without interfering with my HP Laptops MBR menu. I want to use Linux for netbanking and when accessing my credit card online. Thats it, nothing more, nothing dodgy about it. No hidden agenda.

I have Linux running on my external HDD. But I am too lazy to keep rebooting between Vista and ubuntu linux. So now I am running ubuntu using Virtualbox. Just had to make sure my Vista is clean from any keyloggers etc, because whatever I type into ubuntu will be picked up by any Vista nasty because they are "hooked".

 

I bought Acronis Trueimage already. But I didn't think it actually backs up the entire MBR, Partition tables etc. I think I recall once on my old laptop where when I restored an image of C:, that it didn't restore my entire MBR menu etc, even when I chose MBR restore.

I dont think Acronis TI does it. Because it didn't restore it for me.

 

Yes.
That was obvious
Sound like you are successful now.