Windows Backup and Restore System Image

I'm not sure sure what is going on here since I'm not that familiar with Grub4Dos but Windows system image restore does restore the MBR which is sector one (512 bytes only). Are you able to wipe track 0 before doing a system image restore.

PS: the reason you know the MBR is replaced is that you can restore a system image to a new HDD without problem. (ie it boots fine).

MBR is sector #0 of physical disk (first 512 bytes). It has:

• disk signature (not that important). Some kind of barcode to identidy the disk.
• partition table (modified dynamically when you create/delete/move/resize partitions).
• Master boot code. For example GRUB or win7 MBR boot code.

When backing up with macrium reflect the MBR will be backupped. As far as I know only the partition table. It's necessary so that it can show the original size and positition of partitions.

Macrium Reflect backups and restores partitions..... not mbr

I was partitially wrong! The master boot code will be backupped. And CAN be restored if you wish Master Boot Record

My understanding is that the OP is talking about Windows inbuilt system imaging.

Re: Macrium it's news to me it doesn't restore the full MBR. I used it to transfer an image to my SSD and don't recall needing to use startup repair or bootrec /fixmbr.
Macrium Reflect used to have an option not to replace the MBR unlike Windows which insists on it.

Back to the OP. I cannot understand how a pre GRUB Windows image has problems.

BJB said:

mjf said:

Back to the OP. I cannot understand how a pre GRUB Windows image has problems.

Not quite what I said -

"After installing Grub4DOS as boot manager Win 7 booted normally, but when I then restored the System Image it failed to boot."

The problem does lie with track 0, which not only contains the Grub4DOS bootcode, but also contains the partition table, so wiping the whole of the track isn't an option for me as the drive is partitioned and contains very much more than Windows. Isn't it just typical of Microsoft that they give you a command to fix the MBR, which is only the first sector of track 0, but pretend that what others do is unimportant so no need to offer a tool that can write the whole of track 0.

It's useless to rewrite the partition table (it goes automatically on create/resize/move/delete)
It's useless to overwrite the disk signature

Was GRUB4DOS already in MBR at time of backup?

You can save and restore master boot code in linux:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Disk_Cloning

to backup (just an example):

Code:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/sda1/mbr.img bs=446 count=1

to restore (just an example):

Code:

dd if=/mnt/sda1/mbr.img of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1