Hi!

I need some help with my WD mybook 3TB.
The usb interface stopped working and I did what I did when the usb interface stopped working on my WD 1TB, I removed it from the external case and attached it to the internal SATA interface and that worked fine.
But the WD 3TB did not work, I did not know it had hardware encryption so windows of course messed up the mbr.
Does anyone know how to restore it?
Maybe someone can share the original mbr.
I really want to decrypt my data on this drive, there is more than 2TB of files on it.
I already have all the tools for the decryption and I'm not a beginner, I done some programming when I was younger and started with computers 1980 so I know how they works but I'm not an expert, it's a big subject.

Please can someone help me it would be much appreciated.

Fix the USB-SATA bridge PCB or buy another one. Then use DMDE (free version) to repair the partition table in sector 0. Let us know if you need help when you get to this stage.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank's for your response fzabkar.
The usb sata interface is gone, I don't know anything about what kind it was, I really did not know the drive was encrypted and had no plans on replacing the interface.
I just need to repair the 0 sector so I can do a decrypt with the tools available.
I will take a look at DMDE, I suppose that will work even on the sata interface.

Hi again!
If anyone can share the original mbr for a WD mybook essential 3TB it would be very helpful.

Nobody has your original MBR. Your original MBR was encrypted by your drive's unique encryption key. That's why you need the original bridge PCB.

You can still decrypt the drive with software tools. When this process finishes, you will end up with gibberish in sector 0, but you will then be able to restore the MBR and partition table with regular tools such as DMDE.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank's fzabkar!
I suspected that it would be encrypted too but I had to ask, but now my question is how I do the decryption.
Is there anything I should do different from the guides?
I would prefer to be able to mount the drive decrypted so I can copy the files to another disk.
Is there a linux dist that is best for the job, I got ubuntu latest installed.
It's been awhile(about 15 years) since I used linux and before I used slackware when I did some C programming.

Obviously you cannot mount a drive with an invalid partition table, but have you seen this?

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2228

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Yes that is the tool I was intending to use and also reallymine but reallymine gives me a decrypted disk image.
I understand that I can't mount with a broken mbr but after decryption I could restore it with DMDE you said.
I have already made a disk image of the encrypted drive to work with so I don't mess up the original drive.

Load the decrypted image in DMDE. If you see your missing partition, double-click it and expand the $Root. Do you see your file/folder structure?

Can you upload the contents of sectors 0,1,2 (Mode -> Hexadecimal)?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Decryption will probably take some time since it's 3TB but I'll get back to you with those sectors.

Nothing is easy, I can't find the keysector with any of the tools.
Reallymine says it can't unwrap the key and linux-mybook-tools-master script findkeysector.sh can't find it.
Any suggestions how to proceed?

Use WDMarvel's demo version to dump the drive's firmware modules, then upload them here.

https://wdmarvel.com/en/demo/

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Okey program installed, a very dangerous program I would say, I don't want to push the wrong buttons.
So how do I dump the firmware modules?

Amazing, I just discovered with with dmde that my files are not encrypted, it's just windows that has messed up the mbr, and it should be a gpt.


So can I restore the partition?
If not I will have to buy a new disk to recover the files to.

Your enclosure is configured with a sector size of 4KB. When you remove the drive from such an enclosure, you expose its native 512e sector size, rendering the file system inaccessible. Essentially you now have a 4Kn file system on a 512e HDD.

Your best solution would be to recover the files to another drive and then repartition and reformat the 4Kn drive inside your PC in 512e GPT mode. That's unless you want to purchase a replacement bridge PCB.

BTW, are you sure your drive was not an Elements? Elements are not encrypted.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

No I'm not sure if it was an essential any more, I bought it 2012.
It was a elements I was planning to buy but they was sold out so I toke another one.
Up until now I was sure it was a essential, but never mind this makes it easier to solve now.
I'll go and buy a new disk next week, I already recovered 4 files as a test, but dmde free version just lets you recover 4000 files.
Maybe I can use another program otherwise I'll buy a license for dmde.

Thank you very much for your help.

Hi again!
I just want to tell you that dmde had no problem inserting the mybook partition, it's now mounted and fully accessible.
The smart tools report 512 logical sector size and 4096 physical sector size.
Dmde is the best HD tool I ever used so far, it found the partition without several hours of scanning.
All my files was saved.

Thank you again for all your help.