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30 June 2009
Posted in
Linux tutorials -
Frequently Asked Questions
The Master Boot Record (MBR) is the information in the first sector of any hard disk or diskette that identifies how and where an operating system is located so that it can be boot (loaded) into the computer's main storage or random access memory. The Master Boot Record is also sometimes called the "partition sector" or the "master partition table" because it includes a table that locates
each partition that the hard disk has been formatted into. In addition to this table, the MBR also includes a program that reads the boot sector record of the partition containing the operating system to be booted into RAM. In turn, that record contains a program that loads the rest of the operating system into RAM.
Question:
how to erase MBR in Linux ?
Answer :
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1
bs = the first 512 bytes of the harddrive to remove the bootloader
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If you use a figure of 512 bytes to be zeroed out, you will also zero out the disk's partition table. The bs count needs to be less than 512 so that the partition table is retained. (I don't have the actual figure with me at the moment. You should be able to Google for it.)