IM>> Be _very_ careful! If you clear the wrong MBR then you're SNAFU'd.
 IM>> I'll also send you another two utilities to save and restore your
 IM>> MBR's in case you accidentally do the wrong one.

 DD> Can ya 'splain the snafu'd part? It's my understanding that if the
 DD> MBR is  lost or corrupted, using FDISK with the /MBR switch, would
 DD> re-create it.  Is this wrong? Not trying to be a smart a**, I really
 DD> don't know that much  about hard drive dynamics.

FDISK /MBR will rewrite the primary MBR, but will leave the *existing*
partition records (of which there are four in the primary MBR, each defining a 
primary partition) unchanged.  Essentially it reads the primary MBR from disc
into memory, changes everything *apart* from the partition information, and
then writes it back to disc again.

The /MBR switch to FDISK is for use in situations where the bootstrap code
contained in the primary MBR has been corrupted (by an MBR virus) or is blank
(such as is the case with a new blank hard disc).  It specifically *isn't* a
tool for repairing the partition table.

So if you zap your primary MBR with a low-level disc editing tool, or a "low
level format" utility, FDISK /MBR will *not* resurrect your partition table
entries.

 ¯ JdeBP ®

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