Endpoint Encryption

I have a customer computer with Windows 7 Ultimate and PGP WDE 10.x.

I purchased basic support and they suggested I post here.

Windows will not boot. In trying some Windows repair options, I found the MBR is bad and needs rewritten. I do not know where PGP resides but it just might be MBR. 

1. Can I safely rewrite a new MBR with bootrec /fixmbr without affecting PGP? If not how do I proceed?

2. If 1 doesn't work, how can I remove PGP without Windows booting?

If you encrypted the disk, I would suggest using the WDE Recovery CD to decrypt it: 

I may use the WDE recovery CD to decrypt later but that does not answer my initial question.

Will I wipe out PGP WDE if I rewirite the MBR?

if your disk is encrypted, it will cause lack of access to your system - it needs to first be decrypted

Tom is right.

In answer to your questions, no you CANNOT modify MBR in ANY way or your encrypted disk won´t be accesible anymore.

Using Windows Recovery console would break MBR and BootGuard access list, and you will lost all your data.

Anyway, is possible that PGP is installed but disk is not encrypted. You can check this if you actually CAN access disk´s data using a different Operating system.

If you can´t access partitions and filesystem is unknown, your disk is encrypted.

In that case, to remove PGP , first you will need to decrypt the disk using Recovery CD. Follow at instructions Tom sent you.

Please keep us updated

Were you able to resolve this?

On an encrypted disk, please use the command pgpwde /fixmbr if you want to re-write the mbr. Do not use the Windows tool bootrec.

pgpwde.exe can be found in the PGP Desktop installation folder