Make a copy of the boot sector (as root):
dd < /dev/sda > bootsector.dat bs=512 count=1
(assuming you are booting from /dev/sda). Look at the resulting 512 byte file in a hex editor. Here is the first 16 bytes for this system, booting LILO
00000000: faeb 2101 b501 4c49 4c4f 1606 346b 2d43 ..!...LILO..4k-C
PS Simplified version:
# dd < /dev/sda bs=1 skip=6 count=4
and check the beginning of the output