Hi guys,
got a big problem. I had Acronis 2011 installed on my computer, and decided to use True Crypt, so I installed it. Well, Try&decide feature doesn't work anymore (not such a biggie), but with one of my Acronis updates my computer refused to boot up. It doesn't see my Acronis Secure Zone, and of course I was unable to rescue my OS this way. Since I have an external backup I reinstalled my OS, but now, one of my partitions with a lot of data is still encrypted and I am unable to access it. I do have the CD key file that True Crypt asks for, but I am unable to decrypt my data even if I am using the right password and the key file. Any ideas?
I'm a little short on time through the weekend, but here are some things to get the ball rolling...
Did you encrypt the whole partition or create an encrypted volume?
Have you tried to mount the partition or volume first?
Was the volume originally mounted as removable media?
There are a ton of variables, so tell us as much as humanly possible about how you setup and used truecrypt please.
[quote="DavesComputerTips":1h51qacv]I'm a little short on time through the weekend, but here are some things to get the ball rolling...
Did you encrypt the whole partition or create an encrypted volume?
Have you tried to mount the partition or volume first?
Was the volume originally mounted as removable media?
There are a ton of variables, so tell us as much as humanly possible about how you setup and used truecrypt please.[/quote:1h51qacv]
I concur. Not enough info. If you encrypted the whole drive and then tried to restore just the OS, you may have a difficult road ahead. True Crypt is very robust and is designed not to allow hacking. What you describe is what I would try as a hacker to gain access to your encrypted data. The sequence you performed is able to be done without your knowledge.
Please provide further info.
Hi guys,
Thank you for trying to help me.
This are the steps made so far:
1. Installed Windows 7 and created a second partition D.
2. Installed Acronis and created Acronis Secure Zone. Now I have C,D and Acronis SZ.
3. Installed TrueCrypt and encrypted the bootable C partition. Program asked me if I have Hidden partitions (as Acronis SZ) that is used as a backup partition. I answered Yes and than the message was something about encrypting the whole HDD.
4. I had encrypted C,D and I have no idea what happen to Acronis SZ, I guess it was encrypted as well.
5. D was not encrypted as mountable partition, but my guess is it got encrypted as a whole. This is the partition with my data that I would like to rescue.
6. Acronis is asking me about an update, I installed the update.
7. My computer doesen' t boot up. My Acronis Rescue disk fails as well.
8. Installed again Win 7 from external backup.
9. I can't access D anymore.
What I did so far.
1. Reinstalled TrueCrypt, without encrypting my system again.
2. Trying to mount the partition is not possible since my D partition is not listed.
3. I choose "Select Device" and try to mount using my password.
4. The message is "Incorrect password or not a TrueCrypt volume"
5. Inserted my CDkey, created with TrueCrypt and tryied to mount D using the Keyfile. The only option I could figure was "Add Path" to key file.
6. The message is "The system cannot find the file specified", than "Error processing keyfile path" and than "Incorrect keyfile(s) and/ or password or not a TrueCrypt volume"
Thank you.
[quote="coolczone":2onp6h3w]
2. Trying to mount the partition is not possible since my D partition is not listed.
3. I choose "Select Device" and try to mount using my password.
[/quote:2onp6h3w]
Which device are you selecting when you do select device?
Right click on Computer, go to Manage, select Disk Management.
When blue boxes appear, can you take a screenshot or describe what you see here?
Thanks--
Hi Ziggie,
I reinstalled my C partition, left D unattached (this is the encrypted partition that I would like to recover) and got another Acronis SZ (the last partition).
By choosing "Select Device" I am trying to mount D.
Thank you.
What I'm seeing doesn't look good for data recovery. But I've never seen a scenario like this either. Let me do some testing on some things and see what I can come up with...maybe someone else has some ideas.
Thanks Ziggie. What I am intrigued about is why my password doesn't work to decrypt the partition.
[quote="coolczone":2fb7f0v1]Thanks Ziggie. What I am intrigued about is why my password doesn't work to decrypt the partition.[/quote:2fb7f0v1]
I suggest you check out the TrueCrypt forum at http://forums.truecrypt.org/
From what you describe, I doubt recovery is possible. I may be wrong about that, however, since I have limited support experience with TrueCrypt.
Thanks guys,
I guess I'll just have to format my partition. I will wait for another 1 week, after that if there will be no solution I think I'll just renounce and build my data again.
So when I encrypt an entire drive, Windows has no idea what it is.
[attachment=0:1pcqioz5]Image 23.jpg[/attachment:1pcqioz5]
It appears that your partition got formatted as something else and left it as RAW. The formatting process itself would have removed the data.
The data might (maybe, kind of, not likely, but it's a slim hope) be recoverable by a data recovery firm -- but it would be very expensive and I'm not sure what kind of success they would have. If this is the route you choose to go, immediately (now) stop using the drive.
Best of luck.
Thanks Ziggie,
I kind of get used to the situation. Not being able to access all my data made me very eager to work on building the new one. This time it will stay unencrypted.
Hi everybody,
thank you for trying to help me. A positive result is sometime a positive reaction. DCT members gave me that. We can consider this thread closed since I format my partition as of 5 minutes ago. Thank you again, wish you a great day.
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