Bummer... I busted the MBR. :(

[kitepilot at kitepilot.com]

Hello windoze knowledgeable people...   :) 

Short story: 

Preamble:
I have this WinXP laptop provided by my employer that I'd like to run 
virtual from a Linux installation on a flash drive.  'nuff of that... 

How did I shoot my foot:
I went and installed Kubuntu 9.10 (which uses GRUB 2) on the flash drive and 
forgot to tell the thing to leave /dev/sda alone... 

Injury:
Now the machine only boots from the flash drive.
Bummer...   :( 


Soooo...
My plan is to backup the 512 bytes of the MBR and (MOST IMPORTANT!) the 
partition table and use "something" (insert cloud of ignorance here) to 
rebuild the windoze boot record. 

Panic attack:
Can I trust whichever tool I use (and hope you will tell me) to leave the 
partition contents alone or do I better dd the whole 250GB of /dev/sda 
somewhere else in case *IT* happens?
I know that there are not guarantees, but there are always chances...   :) 

I've rebuilt 71803756 plus 1 MBRs holding Linux partitions and I have a 
pretty good idea to what extent to trust the tools, but I am not that agile 
with Micro$haft stuff.
Any hope?
Thanks!
Enrique 

PS: There is always another bullet, but if I shoot my head, the hot air 
escaping will worsen global warming...   :)