1530: Tivoli endpoint manager updates on my PC and requires a restart. I’m about to leave so I just shut down.

2010: System won’t boot, so I start a system restore from a very recent backup.

2100: System restore asks me if I want to restart. Of course.

2201: Missing operating system.

Wtf?

windows OS?

is there a USB stick that it’s trying to boot from?

Is it connected to an external USB hard drive or pen?

it’s God’s way of telling you that you made the wrong choice in the great linux/windows dilemma

1530: The Knights of Malta are formed when the Knights Hospitaller are given Malta by Charles V

2010: Scientists announce that they have created a functional synthetic genome

2100: A squid wins Celebrity Big Brother

2201: The Earth crashes into the Sun

master boot record error?

master boot record error?

+1: You haven’t actually said which OS but if it is windows then this should help:

How to Fix MBR in Windows XP and Vista

My repair USB stick is at home. Do I a) try and find PC support location, b) get on with my job without email or communication, c) go home and try myself with my own USB?

Hmm.

Yes Windows Btw. No idea how thus happened but I am suspecting PGP whole disk encryption.

No idea how thus happened

Usually a sign that the disk is on its way out in my experience.

Usually a sign that the disk is on its way out in my experience.

Seems likely.

What flavour of Windows?

Dunno what flavour, but it tastes bitter….

W7

If there is a good chance I can fix it by repairing the mgr, I could go home and try it.

Running a repair is probably the best first step, then. W7’s repair is pretty intelligent.

If it doesn’t have it on the boot menu as an option, you’ll need the W7 DVD or a rescue disc. I can supply the latter as an ISO if you need. I’ll need to know if it’s 32 or 64 bit though.

(… assuming I can find somewhere to host a 150Mb file, anyroad)

I would presume if its full disk encryption that you will need an appropriate encryption boot disk, and some kind of passkey to allow you to fully decrypt the disk, then generate new mbr or run disk utils, then re-encrypt when you are back up and running.

We have the McAfee EEPC at work and its a huge ball ache when a disk errors as it turns out to be a half day fix rather than ten minutes

So I am basically rogered…? I don’t think the emergency repair disk I have is PGP specific… maybe now is a good time for a linux install….

Incidentally, I do get the PGP screen where I enter my password…

Won’t the MBR be outside of the encryption area?

(I assume something has to be unencrypted to actually load and run the encryption software, unless it is at a hardware level).

The MBR was ok I think – that’s what pointed it to the PGP bit.

Google suggests it’s not possible to restore a system image onto a PGP disk. When the OS is running, the disk is decrypted, so the image was that of a decrypted disk. The windows restore program seems to have restored all the files but I suppose not in the right places sector for sector, so it must’ve messed up the encryption so the PGP bootloader didn’t know what was going on any more.

I left it with IT services. He’s trying to decrypt the disk but I doubt he’ll get far. I’ll end up with a stupid corporate build and no software.. I have no machine.. I feel upset.. I’m suffering grief and as my machine is being wiped I actually feel violated. And that is by far the firstest of first world problems of today 🙂

Has anyone done the Nelson Muntz thing yet?

We use PGP at work too and I had exactly the same thing happen with updates screwing the MBR. I fixed it by decrypting the disk, which took about 10hrs, repairing the MBR with a W7 repair disk and encrypting the disk again. PGP made it a lot more complicated than it needed to be. I didn’t lose anything so you might be OK.

Yeah but I tried to fix it BEFORE the disk was decrypted….

Well, I fixed it.

It took me a long time of faffing about going down blind alleys, but what I needed to do was this:

1) Boot from a normal Windows repair disk
2) Open the DOS prompt
3) Run the ‘clean’ command to clean out the MBR and partition table (not clean all, unless you have time to kill – this zeroes the whole disk).
3) Exit the DOS prompt and use the ‘restore system image’ option. I spent a couple of hours trying to find drivers for my USB hard drive (which doesn’t need drivers!) because it was not recognised. Turns out it’s only recognised if you plug it into the BACK of my Lenovo W520, not the side 🙄

Sorted, but now I have to re-PGP my hard drive again.

Turns out that there are not many options for doing system image backups when you are using PGP. So given how easy the Windows system is to use and how the above process is pretty quick, I think I am going to continue to use it and just take the hit of re PGPing my disk if I get a problem.