8 Free Tools to Backup and Restore the Master Boot Record

(MBR)
The Master Boot Record (MBR) is quite possibly the most important piece of data stored on you hard drives or USB flash drives.
For those that arent exactly sure what the MBR is, its basically a small dedicated section of the drive which holds vital
information about the disc including its boot information and the layout of all the partitions stored. The MBR area itself is tiny
being only a 512 byte sector and is the very first piece of information held right at the beginning of the disc.
If your Master Boot Record becomes corrupted through drive errors or malware etc, it could stop you booting your operating
system and in the worst case, cause all the partitions on the drive to be lost because the drive doesnt have the correct information
to identify them. If your system has a standard disc layout, its always possible to write a new standard MBR using the Windows
XP Recovery Console and the FixMBR command. Or you can use a Windows 7 install disc and select the Repair your
computer -> Command Prompt option with the Bootrec /fixmbr command which also works on Vista and Windows 8 from the
Windows 7 disc.
As the Master Boot Record is such a vital part of your system, it makes sense to have a backup of it just in case the worst
happens. And being only 512 bytes in size means it takes up no room at all and can be stored anywhere. This could save hours of
frustration trying to recover your files from damaged partitions. So here are 8 free tools that can help you to easily backup and
restore your systems Master Boot Record (MBR) for some extra piece of mind.
Read More: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/5-free-tools-to-backup-and-restore-master-boot-record-mbr/view-all/
1. MBRWizard

MBRwizard is quite a powerful utility and can be helpful in dealing with all sorts of MBR related problems. It was originally
designed to repair the damage left on occasion by disk imaging applications such as Symantec Ghost and Acronis True Image,
but has matured into a program to repair all sorts of MBR related issues. It also supports GUID Partition Tables, removable media
and VMware disks. Backing up and restoring an MBR is easy with the Save and Restore commands with optional use of Vol/Disk
The odd thing is MBR Wizards online documentation doesnt list the proper commands for saving or restoring the MBR in
newer versions of the tool. It was:
MBRWiz /Save=C:\MyMBR.Dat
but now its:

MBRWiz /Save=MBR /Filename=C:\MyMBR.Dat

The same command change is present with MBR restoration. As a result of this change, some of the old MBR Wizard GUI
frontend tools (MBRWhisky /Ultimate MBRGUI) wont work if you update the MBRWiz.exe they come with. The MBRwizard c
ommand line version is freeware, and theres also a shareware version with its own frontend, which might explain the command
change, to make the old freeware frontends useless!??
Read More: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/5-free-tools-to-backup-and-restore-master-boot-record-mbr/view-all/
Download MBRWizard!

2. BOOTICE

BOOTICE is more of a general boot sector/MBR editing tool because it has a lot more useful options for advanced users and is
quite a powerful tool. There are extra features such as a Grub4DOS menu editor, disk and sector wiping tool, visual BCD editor
for NT 6.x systems, edit the MBR/boot sector of IMG, IMG, VHD, VHDX and VMDK images, a partition manager and a disk
sector editor. The options to backup and restore the Master Boot Record or the Partition Boot Record (PBR) are via the Process
buttons on the Physical Disk tab and you can also install a boot loader from a variety of different choices such as Plop,
Grub4DOS, NT 5.x/6.x and BOOTMGR or NTLDR. The 1st sector or as many as you wish can simply be backed up to a file
ready to restore later on. As well as the portable GUI, BOOTICE has extensive options available from its command line.
Download BOOTICE

3. MBRtool

MBRtool is a utility that runs in DOS and is designed to backup, restore and verify your hard disks Master Boot Record. In
addition it can also edit or wipe the partition table and blank or remove the boot code. MBRTool will support the first 4 hard
drives present in the system. The program comes with its own bootable media builder where you can write an image to floppy,
burn it to a CD or extract the MBRTool executable to be used on the command line or in scripts. Backing up and restoring is
menu driven and easy to operate if you enter no arguments or double click the EXE while the more manual commands can be
used like any other command line tool.
Download MBRtool

4. HDHacker

HDHacker is a much more user friendly tool with the Windows GUI making it very easy to backup and restore the MBR with a
few clicks. Its able to backup and restore the Maser Boot Record to the physical drive, the boot sector from a logical drive or a
specified number of sectors up to a maximum of 16. They can be saved to a file or loaded back in and written to just about any
type of drive. Although it will probably look like a mixed up mess in the viewing pane to most people, others may be able to
trace problems or even possible boot sector viruses from the information.
Download HDHacker

5. MBRFix

MBRFix is another command line based Master Boot Record fix, backup and restore utility, but has some other partition and
volume tasks available that are similar to those found in the Windows DiskPart tool. They include information about volumes and
drives, listing partitions, cleaning the drive of partitions and setting the active partition. The MBR itself can be backed up with the
savembr {filename} argument and restorembr {filename} to do the opposite with an added option to save any sector range to a
file. This utility should NOT be used for GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks.
If you like the idea of using MBR Fix from the comfort of a GUI, a small frontend tool called Ultimate MBRGUI will enable you
to run both MBR Fix and MBR Wizard essentially using point and click to execute all of the command line functions. The GUI
will run with the latest version of MBR Fix but not MBR Wizard as mentioned.
Download MbrFix

6. MBRUtil

MBRUtil is actually from PowerQuest many years ago before they got swallowed up by Symantec in 2003. This utility is quite
basic and has an option to save the Master Boot Record to a file, and then another to restore it back again. It can also save and
restore the first head of the drive which is the first 62 sectors, MBR is only the first sector. Usage is MBRUtil.exe /S={filename}
or /R={filename}. The zip file also contains another small tool called WipeTrk which will wipe sectors 2 to 63 leaving the MBR
itself intact.
Download MBRUtil

7. MBR Backup

If you want a nice and easy to use Master Boot Record backup and restore tool, then MBR Backup could be what youre looking
for. Simply start the portable executable and it will display the MBR of disk in Hex, the drive can be changed from the drop down
Then all you have to do is click on Save or Print MBR to back it up, and choose the Restore option to put the Boot Record back
again. Apart from being

able to show the partition table of each physical drive, MBR Backup has no other options and is surely a simple tool for simple
MBR backup and restore tasks.
Download MBR Backup

8. MBR Scan

MBR Scan isnt able to restore your Master Boot Record, but it does let you view it and make a backup of the MBR which can
be restored by other tools such as MBR Wizard etc. What makes this tool useful is the information about the drives and partitions
is all nicely laid out in an easy to understand format, which makes it also a useful security tool for checking on any suspicious
activity in the Master Boot Record itself. Theres also a hex sector viewer where you can save specific sectors. Press Scan to
populate the window with the available drives and the Dump button will save the MBR to the same folder as MBR Scan.
Download MBR Scan
Special Note: Its well worth mentioning that one of our favorite bootable Live Windows and repair CDs is loaded with a

number of Master Boot Record tools in both its DOS and Live Windows sections. Hirens Boot CD has over 20 tools including Bo
otICE, HDHacker, MBRWizard, MbrFix and the MBR Tool from this list. Its well worth a look if you want to have a set of
tools ready to go in the event your computer corrupts its MBR unexpectedly
Read More: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/5-free-tools-to-backup-and-restore-master-boot-record-mbr/view-all/

FUENTE:
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