How to generate partial checksum of a file

Question

How can i calculate, let's say md5 sum of first 1024 bytes of a file?

I tried od -N 1024 | md5sum however od output is in octal format by default and this generates different md5 hash.

Answer 1

head -c 1024 | md5sum

should work.

Full example, as requested in comments:

head -c 1024 your_file | md5sum