by Alex » Tue Sep 09, 2008 4:53 pm
HD -> Part is only working because you can do a restore with Part->HD.
In all other cases, either Disk->Disk or Partition->Partition is the way to go.
The Boot Sector of a partition is always copied, if you're meaning the MBR (Master Boot Record, to be found on Sector 1 on the disk): the MBR is only copied with the Disk->Disk mode.
If you need to make a backup, you can use HD->Part. In this case all the contents of the disk are stored to the partition of the target medium, but windows cannot access it. If you restore it back using Partition->HD, everything will be back, including the boot sector and the entire system, so windows will access it again.
The only drawback to this solution is that you cannot access the data on the backup medium without copying back.
But there's still another solution: if you manage to make a small partition on the destination drive (some MB should be enough), you can copy a Disk image to this partition, which will contain the boot sector. On the larger partition you can store the normal data, access it later if you want, and play it back.
So do the following (giving you have a 2nd hard disk with at least 2 partitions, one ~1MB, the other 180GB:
copy disk->partition onto the 1MB partition, don't worry about all the other data not being copied
copy partiton->partition onto the 180GB partition
Now you can access your backup data on the 180GB partition
To restore:
copy partition->disk from the 1MB partition
copy partition->partition from the 180GB partition to the source partition.