Diagnostic MBR/VBR files handoff.bin Show the data that the BIOS/MBR hands off to an MBR/VBR. +++ USAGE +++ NOTE: in the examples, mbr.bin, /dev/hda and /dev/hda1 are used as generic representations. Writing out an MBR is straight forward (it is assumed below that /dev/hda is the target raw device and /dev/hda1 is the target partition): dd conv=notrunc bs=440 count=1 if=mbr.bin of=/dev/hda Writing a VBR to match Syslinux requires more work as it must have a jump and be offset into the partition (and as a result the code must be compatible with this offset): echo -en "\0353\0130\0220" |dd conv=notrunc bs=1 count=3 of=/dev/hda1 dd conv=notrunc bs=2 count=210 seek=45 if=mbr.bin of=/dev/hda1