Just Delete MBR without Formatting Disk

[JimmyIan]

Help!

By accident I just told windows to create an MBR on an encrypted USB HDD (a full 3TB drive!). Argh - In three seconds it rendered the encrypted disk unreadable!
It now recognises the disk as unformatted in two 'partitions', 2048GB and 746.52GB.
Is there a way I can just delete the MBR without damaging my encrypted data?

Plenty beers for anyone who can help!

[digitalferret]

hi JimmyIan

ouch,
maybe give a few more details as to what you used to encrypt the drive and any other relevant detail.

Whatever you do, don't delete or write anything else to the drive.
Usual course of action is to copy what you have and work on that for fear of making matters worse on the source.

K

[fzabkar]

Is the drive still inside its enclosure? If so, can you see your data with Partition Find and Mount?

http://findandmount.com/

Alternatively, can you show us sector 0 using DMDE (freeware)?

[JimmyIan]

Thanks for the quick reply. As you can imagine, I'm pulling my hair out.

FreeOTFE is what I used for the encryption.

I'll just try DMDE and findandmount...

[JimmyIan]

Sector 0 (I think):

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ƒÅâñ͈V UÆFÆF ´A»ªUÍ]rûUªu ÷Á
tþFf`€~ t&fh fÿvh h |h
h ´BŠV ‹ôÍŸƒÄžë¸
» |ŠV Šv
ŠNŠnÍfasþNu€~ €„Š ²€ë„U2äŠV Í]랁>þ}Uªunÿv è uú°Ñædèƒ °ßæ`è| °ÿædèu û¸ »Íf#Àu;fûTCPAu2ù
r,fh» fh  fh fSfSfUfh fh | fah ÍZ2öê | Í ·ë ¶ë µ2ä ‹ð¬< t » ´Íëòôëý+Éädë $àø$ÃInvalid partition table Error loading operating system Missing operating system c{š‡ /Ú*£

It's FreeOTFE I used.
I've turned off the MBR on the disk using DMDE, but no joy.

[fzabkar]

Sorry, I incorrectly assumed you had somehow overwritten sector 0 in a WD My Book Essentials drive, or similar. Your problem is different.

I don't know anything about FreeOTFE, but would it be plausible to create a new 3TB volume on another drive in exactly the same way that you created your existing one, using the same encryption key? If so, then would it be possible to rewrite your damaged sector 0 with the one from the new drive?

BTW, I'm assuming that FreeOTFE encrypts the MBR. Is this actually the case, or does it encrypt the partitions only? It might be worth examining a zero-filled test drive after it has been encrypted just to see what FreeOTFE does.

[JimmyIan]

In trying to restore from backup, I just ended up doing the same with my backup drive!
You know when you have a really really dopey ten minutes, and mess up everything...

I'm so glad I put that extra, crappy old drive in my friend's fire safe! Let's see if I can manage the simple task of restoring from backup number 2 without deleting everything again.

Don't ever let me loose near your data!

[Matiw]

I doubt that you have deleted the MBR, which also holds the partition table as you still have your two partitiions intact. Probably you lost your FAT or MFT depending on the files systems in the drive.