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From: "Jarrod O'Flaherty" <jofsama@yahoo.com>
To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 23:38:27 +0900
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Subject: Re: Help with lost MBR on USB HDD
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> 
> Message: 26
> Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 13:46:30 -0500
> From: Gerard Seibert <gerard@seibercom.net>
> Subject: Re: Help with lost MBR on USB HDD
> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Message-ID: <20060305134300.75D1.GERARD@seibercom.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> 
> I know you do not want to hear this, but why on earth did you 
> attempt to
> mess with the HD without a full backup in place first?
> 
> I am not sure if you can recover the lost data. If not, this 
> would be a
> good time to wipe the disk clean and partition it to your liking. I
> believe that you will have to install Windows before 
> installing FreeBSD.
> 
> Good Luck!
> -- 
> Gerard

I accidentally posted a reply to this which didn't appear in the thread.
Check it out on Mar 07 in freebsd-questions.
(How do I ensure my replies get "threaded" btw?)
Please see that one for a few details on what I did to find a solution
to the problem.

You'll all be happy to know ;) that everything turned out ok in the end!
I got my disks back and my MP3s.

It turned out that it was just a single partition entry in the MBR that
had been erased.
Once I calculated what it should have been and restored it things were
good to go.

The handy tools were:
- dd
- chexedit (available in /port/editors/chexedit )

Plus I read a ton of stuff on the internet, the bookmarks for which I
will be happy
to share with anyone who needs them. 

Cheers,
Jarrod.