this is obsolete doc -- see http://doc.nethence.com/ instead

MBR & boot floppies 

Initialize MBR 

The Unix equivalent for the DOS "fdisk /mbr" is, 

  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/DEV bs=446 count=1 

and in case you’re willing to remove the whole partition table with it, 

  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/DEV bs=512 count=1 

Note. if may be useful to include this trick to backup the MBR and partition table. 

On netbsd, the /mbr equilavent is, 

  fdisk -i wd0 

Otherwise there’s: 

- [MS-SYS](http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/) 

- lilo 

To fdisk /mbr from Linux, simply, 

  lilo -M /dev/sda 

Build a bootable DOS floppy 

To make a DOS bootable floppy on DOS, 

  format a: /s  

and on UNIX, 

  fdformat /dev/fd0u1680 

  mformat a: 

  ms-sys -w /dev/fd0 

  mcopy /dosc/io.sys a: 

  mcopy /dosc/msdos.sys a: 

  mcopy /dosc/command.com a:  

References 

http://mtools.linux.lu/ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fdformat 

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-how-to-uninstall-grub/ 

http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/10/20/backing-up-the-mbr/ 

Bootdisks: 

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm 

http://bootdisks.windowsreinstall.com/ 

http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/xppro.html