[nflug] Disk Image/Restore

[joshj at linuxmail.org]

When we last left our adventurers...

> Jonathan Skulski wrote:
>> >  If you were to completely write zeros to the entire drive, then copy in
>> >  your 98 or xp, you would not have to blank the mbr, it would just fire
>> >  up. We've only done this stuff a thousand times around here. What I do
>> >  know, is that it doesn't hurt to run either fixmbr or fdisk /mbr to make
>> >  sure that the previous mbr is not an issue with the new copy.
>>
>>  What do you mean copy your 98 or xp? Install it? dd from another
>>  drive? Copy the folder from another drive? The first two options would
>>  work, but it would also copy over the mbr. The last option would fail
>>  to boot.
>>
>>  A mbr of all zeros will fail to boot windows.  From the wikipedia
>>  article for Master Boot Record:
>>
>>  "In DOS or Windows 9x, the DOS-mode program fdisk with the
>>  (undocumented) switch /mbr will rewrite the MBR code. In Windows 2000
>>  or later, the recovery console can be used to write new MBR code to a
>>  hard drive."
>>
>>  I zero'd the mbr out and it fails to boot. I don't know what kind of
>>  moon computers you're using, but these ones failed to boot. These are
>>  some new dells running xp, i don't know. Maybe it's a win98 thing.
>>
>>  Sorry this is getting off topic, but zeroing out your mbr is not a
>>  good way to get windows to boot.
>>
>>  jsk
>> 
> IF you READ the entire thread, you would see what the original questions were 
> and how my answers related. Why don't you try reading the threads and 
> understanding what the questions were before offering up your answers.

I'm not trying to start a flame war. I'm just trying to stop the 
propagation of misinformation. If _you_ had read the entire thread you 
would have seen that it had almost nothing to do with partitions. It had 
to do with a full disk image. There may have been partitions involved, but 
that is inconsequential, dd would have copied them without discrimination. 
And with that, the mbr. So, no biggie. Misunderstading.

QUOTE

>> partition being copied was on the 2nd, 3rd partition persay, the mbr
>> would not be copied. The "fdisk /mbr" command simply blanks the mbr
>> anyway. It is a safe thing to do just to be sure. If this is a brand
>> new drive, never having anything installed on it, it is probably not
>> needed. 98 does not need anything on the mbr to boot.

If it is a new HD or a zeroed out HD, it will _not_ boot without the MBR. 
The MBR carries the information that the bios needs to pass control: Where 
to find the kernel, Partition table info, etc. But if you "copy" windows 
from somewhere then it is likely that the MBR will be "copied" as well, 
and you'd never know it. You'd just know that it boots. But if you used dd 
to copy windows from one partition to a new drive, it would fail to boot 
without "repairing" the mbr first. I don't know what fdisk /mbr does, but 
I know it does not "zero" or "blank" the mbr. I'm sure that it probably 
puts the information needed to find the new volume boot label for windows 
on your new partition.

-Josh

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