On Thu, 27 Dec 2001, Jackrabbit Slim wrote:

> Does anyone know of a tool I can use to completely wipe clean the MBR?  (and
> if possible to view it's current contents).

my favorite tool to view the contents of a file, including things
like the MBR, is "hexdump".  i suggest using both the "c" and "x"
options to see both characters and hex:

# hexdump -cx /dev/hda | less           (inspect the MBR on an IDE drive)

  and you want to wipe the MBR?  or any file?  use the input file
/dev/zero, whose mission in life is to generate a stream of zero
bits.  use "dd" to transfer a zero stream of a *fixed* *length*:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

  mind you, the above also wipes your partition table.  if you
only want to wipe the boot code, that's the first 446 bytes of
the MBR.

  do i really have to explain what happens if you forget the
"count" field above?

rday



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