For future, (I haven't done this myself, /me makes note), you can get utilities to save the Win MBR as a file on floppy to restore it in a couple of secs.
For linux, a boot floppy for your particular linux setup is handy, saving a "linux MBR" would not save the grub stages and config, as you found. However with linux, you can always boot with Knoppix, SuseLive or MandrakeMove and get into your linux partitions like that to sort things out.
Another idea is to make an image of the partition(s). I used partimage to make an image of my (fully WinUpdated) Win partition, it restores in 4 mins! I also made images of my Suse setup too. Very handy.