Grab

PURPOSE   OPERATION   OPTIONS   RELATED PROGRAMS


Author: Dan Mares, dmares @ maresware . com
Portions Copyright © 1998-2021 by Dan Mares and Mares and Company, LLC
Phone: 678-427-3275

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Purpose

Grab will copy from a hard drive and replace to a hard drive the partition table (Master boot record, track 0, head 0, sector 1), and boot record (track 0, head 1, sector 1) from files on a floppy disk. This saving and replacing capability is to protect against accidental corruption of those sectors.

These clean records can also be replaced if the system becomes infected with a boot sector virus that is difficult to remove.

Some security programs alter the Master boot record of a hard drive. If a clean copy of that sector were available, the security program could be rendered unusable.


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Operation

The user provides a hard disk drive letter to process(generally C:). Then the program prompts the user for a number of choices.

Depending on the choices made by the user the program will do one of the following operations:

1. Copy the Master Boot Record to a file on a floppy disk

2. Copy the boot record to a file on a floppy disk.

3. Copy both MBR and boot record to files on a floppy disk

4. Copy a file from the floppy disk to the Master Boot Record.

5. Copy a file from the floppy disk to the boot record.

6. Copy both files from the floppy to the MBR and boot record.

The files copied are 512 bytes, each representing the data found in the appropriate sector on the hard disk.

The Master Boot Record is considered to be the data on head 0, track/cylinder 0, sector 1.

The boot record is considered to be the data on head 1, track/cylinder 0, sector 1.


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Options

There are no options available with the program. The user supplies on the command line the drive letter to process. The program defaults to writing and reading from the A: drive.

The user is prompted to enter one of the following choices:

1. Copy the Master Boot Record to a file on a floppy disk

2. Copy the boot record to a file on a floppy disk.

3. Copy both MBR and boot record to files on a floppy disk

4. Copy a file from the floppy disk to the Master Boot Record.

5. Copy a file from the floppy disk to the boot record.

6. Copy both files from the floppy to the MBR and boot record.


Related Programs

None

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