Linux Backup Restore Destroy and Install MBR - Master Boot Record

BACKUP MBR

To backup Master Boot Record ( MBR ):

# dd if=/dev/sdb of=my.mbr bs=466 count=1

where my.mbr is a file where we would like to store our MBR backup.

RESTORE MBR

To restore a MBR we need to just switch the order of input and output files.

# dd if=my.mbr of=/dev/sdb bs=466 count=1

DESTROY MBR

If you from any reason want to destroy your MBR us as a input file /dev/zero:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=466 count=1

INSTALL MBR

Installing MBR can be very useful especially when creating linux USB boot sticks. To install MBR from scratch we can use install-mbr command found in mbr package:

#install-mbr /dev/sdb