backing up and restoring boot sector

[toyfactory]

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:36:03 +0300, "ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY"
<zamb at spymac.com> said:

> Yes. MBR is not the only way to boot the system.  Be default, the BIOS
> will see if it can load the MBR into the memory. If that succeeded, then
> the BIOS job ends there. If that fails, it will search in the partition
> table for the first partition that is marked boot-able (from the
> boot-able device in the BIOS settings) and load the first 512 Bytes into
> the memory. If that fails, it try for the next boot device (the second
> hard-drive, for example, or the CD-ROM, or whatever) and so on until it
> fails to load anything, then you'll see the "No boot device found,
> insert a boot disk in A: and hit enter" or whatever you BIOS is
> configured to report.
> 
> Microsoft historically never used the MBR.  All their OSes clear the MBR
> and set a boot-able partition (usually the first one, or "C:") and put
> the boot code in there (msdos.sys (or io.sys, I forgot which one, I'm
> too old) for DOS and Windows 9x/Me, and ntloader.something for Windows
> NT/2000/XP/2003).
> 
> I hope this enlighten you a little.
> Ziyad.

So this is why Grub can coexist with the Windows boot menu on my
computer.  Then I guess if I wiped the MBR by accident my computer would
still boot, no longer to Grub but instead directly to the Windows boot
menu.

Cheers, it's increased my understanding of the boot process!

Nick