Bummer... I busted the MBR. :(

[Matt Graham]

From: "kitepilot at kitepilot.com" <kitepilot at kitepilot.com>
> 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... 
> 
> Now the machine only boots from the flash drive.
> 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. 

Run FIXMBR or FDISK /MBR from a 'Doze boot CD.  Failing that, get the
446-byte boot record from somewhere and dd it to /dev/sda .  There's
actually no need to do anything with the partition table here.

> Can I trust whichever tool I use (and hope you will tell me) to
> leave the partition contents alone or [had] I better dd the whole
> 250GB of /dev/sda somewhere else in case *IT* happens?

There will be no need to back up things if you use the tools in the
previous paragraph.

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see