Most of us know that the Master Boot Record (MBR) is a special type of boot sector, placed at the beginning of the storage device, that tells your computer what to do when it starts. It contains important boot information which is necessary for booting a computer system. Also, sometimes viruses or other OS setups can overwrite the MBR/Boot Sectors if you have more than a single OS installed on your machine, making it difficult to start up the favored OS.
If, for some reason, the MBR gets corrupted due to a malware attack or any other reason, you may find that the data on your hard drive will be irretrievably lost. It is, therefore, a good idea to back up the MBR. Although the need to restore may arise only when the MBR is corrupted or when the PC’s setup changes unknowingly, like when the hard drive partitions are changed or an OS is installed or uninstalled, one should always have a backup ready.
If ever, your MBR gets corrupted you can restore it from a backup you have with you quickly. Like MBR Backup, HDHacker is another freeware that helps you in backing up MBR quickly.
HDHacker – Backup & Restore Boot Sector & MBR
HDHacker is a stand-alone micro-utility that saves, visualizes, and restores the MBR (from a physical drive), the Boot Sector (from a logical drive) or any specified sector from any disk (even removable disks). The program is an advanced hard drive tool for system administrators and advanced users only. Any improper use or misuse can lead to inaccessible hard drives and make your computer un-bootable.
It comes with a graphical user interface. HDHacker responds quickly upon launch and immediately displays sector information. All the user has to do is choose a drive (physical/logical) to operate, together with the first or custom sector. All the information displayed can be saved to the clipboard or written on a disk. In addition, you can save a sector to a file (DAT format).
As mentioned earlier, it may be a good idea to back up the Boot Sector and MBR because it can prove useful if ever some boot sector virus or another OS setup, like Linux, were to overwrite, alter, or corrupt the MBR/Boot Sectors, making it impossible to start up your original operating system.
Download HDHacker from its home page. You may have to scroll down a bit to get to its download link.
See this if you need to Repair Master Boot Record.
TIP: Protect your computer’s Master Boot Record with MBR Filter.
personally I just use BootICE, works great for windows, including 8. great for checking for root kits. does backups, does default mbrs, and more.