fixing MBR and elegant way of backing up (Score 1)

When my hard disk having linux+windows different partitions got its MBR corrupted , I connected it as second HDD to my friends linux box and used http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/gpart to scan the disk and build MBR afresh. But you shouldnt use the disk anymore (even the identifiable partitions) to save for any possible mess.

A way to backup is nicely illustrated by http://antrix.net/journal/techtalk/seagate_freeagent.htmlDeepak though theres no mention about cost.