Hello, I found out that dd could copy the primary partition table, but isnt extended partition a primary partition itself?

If I use dd to backup mbr of one computer which has a primary partition and a extended and copy to another one, would it mess with the extended partition?

I cant lose the things stored there.

Im duplicating a computer installation to another and to boot windows I would have to restore the mbr too.

Skuzye

Several points:

An "extended partition" is really the beginning of a linked list of all the logical partitions. It occupies one of the four slots in the MBR partition table, but I would not call it a primary partition.

For primary and logical partitions, the entries in the partition tables point to actual partitions on the disk. The extended partition entry does not.

If you just copy the MBR you are not doing anything to the actual partitions.

If you copy the MBR to another computer, how do you know that the partition table entries are still valid?---unless the other computer is an identical clone. In that case, simply us dd to clone everything, INCLUDING the MBR.

regardless of all the above, be sure you have a backup before you do any of this.

well as you said copying the mbr wouldnt damage the partitions themselves. If I backup the mbr and the new one doesnt work I can restore it just like it was before, right?

I used partimage to backup the only primary partition in the source computer. The destination only has one primary too. Since I cant boot windows after restoring to the destination, I found out that I would have to restore the mbr too.

I just trying to hack it to work... Dont wanna reinstall the same things again, it would take a lot of time..

Skuzye

In principle, that is correct.

If you tell me that all your data is backed up, then I will be able to sleep tonight.....