TrueCrypt problem after installing Linux!

Hi,

First of all I hope I have posted in the correct section, if not could someone move it ?

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop, with a 250GB HDD, I installed Truecrypt and encrypted my drive and also boot a password on boot, but enabled "do not show error messages" or whatever option it was. My recent scenario is that I created a new partition then Installed Backtrack Linux to that partition, After I did what I needed to do on backtrack (aswell as install grub etc) It would not let me boot into windows, It gives me my "personal message" I put so no one knew I had to enter in a password, "Missing Operating System" - I enter my password which I know is correct and it just does nothing, I used the truecrypt rescue disk and restored the keys, bootloader and header. Nothing seems to have worked I still get the same problem. I'd really like some help on this as I have really important data on my drive that I need saving, I'm kicking myself for not backing any of it up. I hope someone could shed some light on my situation or even help me with on how to get back to my original windows setup.

(I also decrypted my drive using the rescue disk which took over 36 hours..)

Thanks,

Jake.

I heard the Satellites have a hidden recovery partition which may have confused things when grub or truecrypt installed. In any case when you installed truecrypt did you install a truecrypt mbr to the BIOS boot disk mbr? And did you only encrypt the Windows volume? GRUB probably overwrote your mbr in any case. To shed more light on the subject boot into your Backtrack and download and run the Boot Info Script, see if the RESULTS.TXT sheds any light on the subject, you can post the RESULTS.TXT into code tags of a message. Here's how: http://ubuntuforums....d.php?t=1291280

Does the truecrypt rescue disk put another new mbr to replace the one grub (probably) destroyed?

And to clarify, were you ever able to get into Windows after installing truecrypt?

Also, I'd say try to use a tool that can help you boot Windows, such as the Super Grub Disk (I think it works on 7), but if it is encrypted...

It is Windows 7, correct?

Have you tried the TrueCrypt forum?

WOW you are right, you SHOULD have backed up your data and/or system!!

I heard the Satellites have a hidden recovery partition which may have confused things when grub or truecrypt installed. In any case when you installed truecrypt did you install a truecrypt mbr to the BIOS boot disk mbr? And did you only encrypt the Windows volume? GRUB probably overwrote your mbr in any case. To shed more light on the subject boot into your Backtrack and download and run the Boot Info Script, see if the RESULTS.TXT sheds any light on the subject, you can post the RESULTS.TXT into code tags of a message. Here's how: http://ubuntuforums....d.php?t=1291280

Does the truecrypt rescue disk put another new mbr to replace the one grub (probably) destroyed?

And to clarify, were you ever able to get into Windows after installing truecrypt?

Also, I'd say try to use a tool that can help you boot Windows, such as the Super Grub Disk (I think it works on 7), but if it is encrypted...

It is Windows 7, correct?

Have you tried the TrueCrypt forum?

WOW you are right, you SHOULD have backed up your data and/or system!!

Hi, Thanks for the reply!

I was always able to boot Into windows after installing truecrypt, I had it installed for over 5 months without any problems, just until I installed backtrack, the problem is, I can't even boot into backtrack, let alone Windows, It just seems like It's given up completely, I'm download Ubuntu now, so I'll boot it up on a live boot, so I won't have to install anything. Hopefully I'll be able to get the RESULTS.txt for you from there.

I really have no idea what the hell has happened, It's worrying me now!

Boot Info Script 0.55	dated February 15th, 2010					



============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================



 => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda



sda1: _________________________________________________________________________



	File system:	   

	Boot sector type:  Unknown

	Boot sector info:  

	Mounting failed:

mount: unknown filesystem type ''



sda2: _________________________________________________________________________



	File system:	   ntfs

	Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7

	Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.

	Operating System:  Windows 7

	Boot files/dirs:   /Windows/System32/winload.exe



sda3: _________________________________________________________________________



	File system:	   ntfs

	Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7

	Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.

	Operating System:  

	Boot files/dirs:   



sda4: _________________________________________________________________________



	File system:	   

	Boot sector type:  Unknown

	Boot sector info:  

	Mounting failed:

mount: unknown filesystem type ''

mount: unknown filesystem type ''



=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================



Drive: sda ___________________ _____________________________________________________



Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes



Partition  Boot		 Start		   End		  Size  Id System



/dev/sda1	*		  2,048	   821,247	   819,200  27 Hidden HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda2			 821,248   314,165,247   313,344,000   7 HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda3		 314,165,248   543,219,711   229,054,464   7 HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda4		 543,219,712   625,139,711	81,920,000   7 HPFS/NTFS





blkid -c /dev/null: ____________________________________________________________



Device		   UUID								   TYPE	   LABEL						 



/dev/loop0											  squashfs								 

/dev/sda2		4AE2A566E2A5574B					   ntfs	   WINDOWS					   

/dev/sda3		DCA0A7F1A0A7D076					   ntfs	   Data						  

/dev/sda: PTTYPE="dos" 



============================ "mount | grep ^/dev  output: ===========================



Device		   Mount_Point			  Type	   Options



aufs			 /						aufs	   (rw)

/dev/sr0		 /cdrom				   iso9660	(ro,noatime)

/dev/loop0	   /rofs					squashfs   (ro,noatime)



=========================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc =======================



Unknown BootLoader  on sda1



00000000  cb ba d7 5c a5 10 24 22  f2 a6 08 50 d8 bb 01 00  |...\..$"...P....|

00000010  fc 9f 2a 89 e6 5e e7 7e  cf c8 76 17 74 c4 1c f3  |..*..^.~..v.t...|

00000020  7e 28 17 77 23 b1 8b 94  7d 86 db 1d 7f 7f 4c 3b  |~(.w#...}.....L;|

00000030  ba 27 0e d1 81 f0 bf c5  d6 21 79 9f 62 22 0f cf  |.'.......!y.b"..|

00000040  6c 84 cd db 47 09 66 1e  76 d7 6d ba c0 28 68 b2  |l...G.f.v.m..(h.|

00000050  35 5a 27 e0 dd cb fb df  d6 81 f9 f0 b2 9e 61 5f  |5Z'...........a_|

00000060  f4 de b2 06 0a 58 ac 6f  83 74 64 f9 f6 bf 1f a5  |.....X.o.td.....|

00000070  4b 0c b6 74 af 76 47 ee  9e fd 84 10 d5 88 f2 33  |K..t.vG........3|

00000080  1b 4c 4c a1 98 f2 bd 77  d3 2e 92 2b 0c fd 6a f1  |.LL....w...+..j.|

00000090  27 3a 0a e1 83 77 ef f2  e6 0c 37 84 1f 33 65 16  |':...w....7..3e.|

000000a0  5d f2 ed da 03 16 bf 65  96 77 62 df 6e 81 e7 7b  |]......e.wb.n..{|

000000b0  5e d7 70 df 22 7a fb 29  2b 6d 30 89 1e aa f5 fb  |^.p."z.)+m0.....|

000000c0  69 7c 5b 8a 27 04 fc 54  af 95 96 0e 93 70 e9 2a  |i|[.'..T.....p.*|

000000d0  fe 3a 28 af 36 b1 52 8d  61 13 7f 63 2e 34 8d d1  |.:(.6.R.a..c.4..|

000000e0  a7 4a ea 4b 1b c9 b8 ff  3d cc 57 98 1f 6b 5c 7d  |.J.K....=.W..k\}|

000000f0  fd e5 50 79 ac 36 aa 92  42 01 e8 26 3c 49 97 d9  |..Py.6..B..&<I..|

00000100  38 09 fb dc 81 e3 d7 b0  dc 66 3c 4b 9e 34 93 7e  |8........f<K.4.~|

00000110  08 2f f8 56 9c 76 a4 ab  dd ab a6 8f 07 fa aa 6e  |./.V.v.........n|

00000120  bb 7a ed 51 ce 21 76 a4  8d b4 4f 22 d9 80 2d 4f  |.z.Q.!v...O&#34;..-O|

00000130  e8 76 93 04 a5 ff 71 b2  16 1d 78 2c 4f 87 28 88  |.v....q...x,O.&#40;.|

00000140  52 12 1d da f1 f6 38 d5  4f 52 ef 71 89 d6 36 e4  |R.....8.OR.q..6.|

00000150  37 b1 43 fe b7 36 35 36  88 27 8b 9d 33 ba 0d 3f  |7.C..656.&#39;..3..?|

00000160  53 54 83 90 38 13 fd 83  2e 0d 07 bb 27 88 6a da  |ST..8.......&#39;.j.|

00000170  e9 0f 7b c6 df f4 82 c7  4a 24 a8 96 bf ae 78 04  |..{.....J$....x.|

00000180  0a 32 f3 23 ff 8a 0e 2e  ba 39 e5 28 a3 84 fc 2a  |.2.#.....9.&#40;...*|

00000190  f5 37 80 e5 2b 44 59 4a  c7 dc 0f e0 81 2d 34 b0  |.7..+DYJ.....-4.|

000001a0  c1 7e df 28 b4 83 89 98  57 fb 4e e2 c7 93 9f ac  |.~.&#40;....W.N.....|

000001b0  0e c8 9a 46 a7 82 3b fa  6b 96 05 02 4a 60 d1 de  |...F..;.k...J&#96;..|

000001c0  a3 fa 08 83 05 ff 8d 86  e2 1e 7c 97 f6 51 f8 d0  |..........|..Q..|

000001d0  10 5c dc 87 a2 af 8f 72  2c 92 a9 9c 82 40 65 94  |.\.....r,....@e.|

000001e0  69 0b ac 45 e4 4e e3 b9  13 95 68 a3 26 ba 51 86  |i..E.N....h.&.Q.|

000001f0  e2 4c cc 48 ff 19 82 97  42 9c 51 af 11 6a b4 8b  |.L.H....B.Q..j..|

00000200



Unknown BootLoader  on sda4



00000000  1e bf f8 d1 63 61 45 96  fb da f7 0c 68 c9 b6 1f  |....caE.....h...|

00000010  6a 9a b7 6c a6 70 42 75  2c 8f 39 eb eb 6c 6f e1  |j..l.pBu,.9..lo.|

00000020  01 b8 3f 47 d7 09 fb fc  e4 46 09 bc 1a 47 60 a8  |..?G.....F...G&#96;.|

00000030  74 f2 96 6a af e4 55 4a  91 62 03 06 5d df 40 49  |t..j..UJ.b..&#93;.@I|

00000040  8c d5 b6 f9 2a f1 64 d2  d6 eb 58 76 3c 8e 73 5a  |....*.d...Xv<.sZ|

00000050  cb fb f2 ba 8e 57 f0 29  49 f0 53 82 2f 8c e0 45  |.....W.&#41;I.S./..E|

00000060  15 05 e9 6d 55 83 fd 16  96 9d 5c 0f ad 7f 77 6d  |...mU.....\...wm|

00000070  0c c6 18 13 ef df 91 82  c7 b4 eb 90 a3 d2 b0 01  |................|

00000080  b8 84 f4 cd fc 03 c1 00  7d 3a 86 41 38 ee 04 6d  |........}&#58;.A8..m|

00000090  37 0d ad 50 3f 75 c2 01  0d ef 09 92 88 1a b5 88  |7..P?u..........|

000000a0  76 a7 80 1a 13 8a 75 4b  2b cb 8f d9 2d 0a 33 8a  |v.....uK+...-.3.|

000000b0  4a b0 1e 5b 75 3b 8e 83  35 f5 12 0e 34 01 ed 98  |J..&#91;u;..5...4...|

000000c0  f5 8b eb 7c 93 d7 3e 28  ed 09 b1 70 ad cb f0 00  |...|..>&#40;...p....|

000000d0  0c 90 96 f3 42 23 ca dd  45 d2 be a6 5c f0 04 0b  |....B#..E...\...|

000000e0  ba 60 9a 4b 4d 7c 56 a6  dc 1e 52 72 80 11 36 ab  |.&#96;.KM|V...Rr..6.|

000000f0  f2 f2 b4 d2 22 1f 16 a1  76 54 84 45 c3 b7 86 f0  |....&#34;...vT.E....|

00000100  4f 06 6e a3 77 37 36 2d  7e 16 e2 bf 30 c5 e6 c9  |O.n.w76-~...0...|

00000110  31 d4 67 7d dd 6b a1 17  ad 8b 3c 84 d9 fb 06 89  |1.g}.k....<.....|

00000120  c4 cb 02 50 25 02 e0 37  f0 d6 e5 ba 8c 90 97 ec  |...P%..7........|

00000130  5c be 29 a3 bd 3b 3b c6  a7 71 5b 85 3e 58 8b e0  |\.&#41;..;;..q&#91;.>X..|

00000140  07 b4 31 bd 9b 8a 99 f5  6d 26 c1 4d a4 19 55 12  |..1.....m&.M..U.|

00000150  27 86 89 7a 4c c1 09 a9  be d2 fa 72 ae 06 aa a0  |&#39;..zL......r....|

00000160  20 df 36 62 c5 64 47 1a  07 64 64 82 31 f5 c4 ef  | .6b.dG..dd.1...|

00000170  5a dc 2f 55 24 0e 1d c6  5e e7 64 93 81 b6 d4 23  |Z./U$...^.d....#|

00000180  5d 8e 46 57 e2 c7 6c cf  6c 28 36 52 88 9b 09 99  |&#93;.FW..l.l&#40;6R....|

00000190  44 98 1c fe 59 4b 38 1b  02 3c a2 93 6c cf 9e 06  |D...YK8..<..l...|

000001a0  83 61 8a 30 05 4f 35 0c  ac 26 15 66 10 d4 30 02  |.a.0.O5..&.f..0.|

000001b0  f3 a3 09 29 0a 6d 68 28  21 58 cf a9 e3 9d de f8  |...&#41;.mh&#40;!X......|

000001c0  ed 4b ba 7c 07 c8 c0 ec  b7 da 6c d8 e5 f0 09 c8  |.K.|......l.....|

000001d0  73 42 b1 09 6f 8c 95 41  8d 68 70 7a b3 35 ca c8  |sB..o..A.hpz.5..|

000001e0  33 29 9e d5 f4 d2 04 33  ab 55 59 68 25 68 ca d5  |3&#41;.....3.UYh%h..|

000001f0  14 0b ea 52 da bf e9 77  e5 19 c8 85 9f 01 cc 63  |...R...w.......c|

00000200

Here's my results.txt

Thanks

Without being authoritative, here are some ideas, your mileage may vary...

Before you do anything you should ghost and clone your drive. In other words if your data is that important, you should do a bit for bit copy onto a compatible drive, and install that in your computer instead of your original drive. Can you do that?

On the cloned drive you should also boot to a PE disk or usb stick and use a utility to back up your mbr and boot sectors. This way if you make any changes that don't work you can revert back to before.

re: TrueCrypt Rescue Disk http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/

I assume you used the disk to simply try to boot into Windows? When that didn't work you used the rescue disk to restore the TrueCrypt mbr and key data? If you didn't, try those now. If that fails, could you hex dump your mbr please? You need to be sure the TrueCrypt mbr is actually getting restored. From your Ubuntu Live CD do this:

sudo hexdump -n 512 -C /dev/sda

To see if it is a plain Windows 7 mbr or truecrypt.

So it looks like you picked system encryption for the Windows partition, as opposed to the whole system drive, in that case I guess it leaves the boot loader for the Windows 7 partition alone. However, I'm sure we can't access the filesystem with something like the Super GRUB disk due to the encryption, but it might be worth a quick try since its easy to do.

Your first partition probably didn't get recognized by the boot info script because it is probably the Toshiba rescue area, but you should research this.
Your 4th partition perhaps didn't get recognized because if you were able to restore the truecrypt mbr (which includes the partition table), any changes made to it before/during the BackTrack installation were destroyed, which could explain why you can't get into BackTrack.

It seems to me when you installed TrueCrypt it put its own mbr on your drive, then at boot asked you for your password, then called the W7 bootloader and did the on the fly decryption. The W7 bootloader and volume appear to exist, this is good.

You might use PhotoRec or a hex viewer on the 4th partition to make sure it isn't anything you need (Another Toshiba hidden area?) Otherwise, It seems to me you should be able to install Ubuntu to that 4th partition, install TrueCrypt for Linux, then use it to mount and decrypt your Windows 7 volume.

OR Install Ubuntu to a USB Flash Drive and do the same (better choice).

In the case of an Ubuntu HDD install, the default install will write grub to the mbr, so use the Advanced mode and ensure you pick the correct (4th) partition and don't install grub to the mbr, just use the Super Grub Disk to boot to Ubuntu, or DO let the default install overwrite the mbr, but back up the mbr first using mbrwizard from a PE disk or dd from a Linux Live CD or usb.

BEFORE doing anything, you should get the opinion of any experts over at the TrueCrypt forums!

GOOD LUCK!

breaker

EDIT: You can also look into the Stoned bootloader, it is supposed to get around truecrypt in certain situations.

Edited by breaker, 12 November 2010 - 10:53 AM.

Wait a minute.

You said you UNencrypted the hard disk (and this makes sense since the MBR and bootsectors of sda2 and sda3 are recognized).

The problem is with the sda1.

This should mean that you originally installed the Windows 7 WITHOUT partitioning the disk first, and the Windows 7 made it's stupid system/hidden partition (which probably you royally sc...ed up with the attempt to install backtrack).

But it is strange, that sda1 is 419,430,400 bytes in size, as that kind of Windows 7 "system" partition is 100 Mb in size (or 200 Mb on eaarly pre-RTM releases).

So, it is possible that it is actually a Toshiba recovery partition of some kind (but if it is, it sounds a bit too small to contain an actual recovery image).

The "real Windows" partition should be sda2, from what you posted I cannot see if ANY partition is active.

Can you check that? (or better post the MBR as breaker suggested).


Wonko

Hi,

Thanks for the replies, I installed Ubuntu onto the partition I made originally for backtrack.

Here's the output of the command breaker told me to issue:

oot@JAKE-LINUX:/# sudo hexdump -n 512 -C /dev/sda

00000000  eb 63 90 d0 bc 00 7c 8e  c0 8e d8 be 00 7c bf 00  |.c....|......|..|

00000010  06 b9 00 02 fc f3 a4 50  68 1c 06 cb fb b9 04 00  |.......Ph.......|

00000020  bd be 07 80 7e 00 00 7c  0b 0f 85 0e 01 83 c5 10  |....~..|........|

00000030  e2 f1 cd 18 88 56 00 55  c6 46 11 05 c6 46 10 00  |.....V.U.F...F..|

00000040  b4 41 bb aa 55 cd 13 5d  72 0f 81 fb 55 aa 75 09  |.A..U..]r...U.u.|

00000050  f7 c1 01 00 74 03 fe 46  10 66 00 80 01 00 00 00  |....t..F.f......|

00000060  00 00 00 00 ff fa 90 90  f6 c2 80 75 02 b2 80 ea  |...........u....|

00000070  74 7c 00 00 31 c0 8e d8  8e d0 bc 00 20 fb a0 64  |t|..1....... ..d|

00000080  7c 3c ff 74 02 88 c2 52  bb 17 04 80 27 03 74 06  ||<.t...R....&#39;.t.|

00000090  be 88 7d e8 1c 01 be 05  7c f6 c2 80 74 48 b4 41  |..}.....|...tH.A|

000000a0  bb aa 55 cd 13 5a 52 72  3d 81 fb 55 aa 75 37 83  |..U..ZRr=..U.u7.|

000000b0  e1 01 74 32 31 c0 89 44  04 40 88 44 ff 89 44 02  |..t21..D.@.D..D.|

000000c0  c7 04 10 00 66 8b 1e 5c  7c 66 89 5c 08 66 8b 1e  |....f..\|f.\.f..|

000000d0  60 7c 66 89 5c 0c c7 44  06 00 70 b4 42 cd 13 72  |&#96;|f.\..D..p.B..r|

000000e0  05 bb 00 70 eb 76 b4 08  cd 13 73 0d f6 c2 80 0f  |...p.v....s.....|

000000f0  84 d0 00 be 93 7d e9 82  00 66 0f b6 c6 88 64 ff  |.....}...f....d.|

00000100  40 66 89 44 04 0f b6 d1  c1 e2 02 88 e8 88 f4 40  |@f.D...........@|

00000110  89 44 08 0f b6 c2 c0 e8  02 66 89 04 66 a1 60 7c  |.D.......f..f.&#96;||

00000120  66 09 c0 75 4e 66 a1 5c  7c 66 31 d2 66 f7 34 88  |f..uNf.\|f1.f.4.|

00000130  d1 31 d2 66 f7 74 04 3b  44 08 7d 37 fe c1 88 c5  |.1.f.t.;D.}7....|

00000140  30 c0 c1 e8 02 08 c1 88  d0 5a 88 c6 bb 00 70 8e  |0........Z....p.|

00000150  c3 31 db b8 01 02 cd 13  72 1e 8c c3 60 1e b9 00  |.1......r...&#96;...|

00000160  01 8e db 31 f6 bf 00 80  8e c6 fc f3 a5 1f 61 ff  |...1..........a.|

00000170  26 5a 7c be 8e 7d eb 03  be 9d 7d e8 34 00 be a2  |&Z|..}....}.4...|

00000180  7d e8 2e 00 cd 18 eb fe  47 52 55 42 20 00 47 65  |}.......GRUB .Ge|

00000190  6f 6d 00 48 61 72 64 20  44 69 73 6b 00 52 65 61  |om.Hard Disk.Rea|

000001a0  64 00 20 45 72 72 6f 72  0d 0a 00 bb 01 00 b4 0e  |d. Error........|

000001b0  cd 10 ac 3c 00 75 f4 c3  30 2a 6e 70 00 00 00 00  |...<.u..0*np....|

000001c0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1e  |................|

000001d0  2c 33 07 fe ff ff 00 88  0c 00 00 40 ad 12 00 fe  |,3.........@....|

000001e0  ff ff 07 fe ff ff 00 c8  b9 12 00 18 a7 0d 80 fe  |................|

000001f0  ff ff 83 fe ff ff 00 e0  60 20 00 00 e2 04 55 aa  |........&#96; ....U.|

00000200

Yes, I did decrypt the drive, I am able to access my data from Ubuntu, but It's not really efficient to me as I only have limited space on backup devices I have.
It's just strange, I have no idea why it just won't boot back up into my original Windows 7 OS, I have used BootRec /fixmbr & /rebuildbcd etc. Nothing seems to work.

OKAY... At least you can get your data now!! Be thankful!

Your mbr is now GRUB, I would guess because when you installed Ubuntu GRUB was written to the mbr, which is fine for now.

Here's what I'm guessing (only a guess, because I don't know exactly how TrueCrypt backs up the mbr) -

When you installed TrueCrypt your mbr AND partition table were a certain way. When you installed BackTrack you installed GRUB into the mbr AND altered the 4th partition entry, allowing you to access BackTrack. In the process the TrueCrypt mbr was blown away.


When you restored the TrueCrypt mbr with the rescue CD, the partition table was reverted back to the way it was before BackTrack, unless of course TrueCrypt leaves the partition table alone and only restores the mbr portion. The restoration of course undid the change to the partition table that let you access BackTrack.

Somewhere when you changed the partition table the Truecrypt code in the mbr got confused, and can't find Windows 7.

It's really hard to say, both TrueCrypt and Windows 7 are strange beasts when it comes to booting, at least they are to me.

Whatever happened, if you go ahead and decrypt the Windows 7 filesystem from Ubuntu "permanently", then you should be able to at least boot to it using the Super Grub Disk.

Furthermore, once you decrypt "permanently" to be able to boot into Windows 7 you can try to update the GRUB menu by booting into Ubuntu and issuing:

sudo update-grub

and reboot. You may have to hold down shift to unhide the GRUB menu at boot.

This should be good enough for now.

Good Luck!

breaker

OKAY... At least you can get your data now!! Be thankful!

Your mbr is now GRUB, I would guess because when you installed Ubuntu GRUB was written to the mbr, which is fine for now.

Here's what I'm guessing (only a guess, because I don't know exactly how TrueCrypt backs up the mbr) -

When you installed TrueCrypt your mbr AND partition table were a certain way. When you installed BackTrack you installed GRUB into the mbr AND altered the 4th partition entry, allowing you to access BackTrack. In the process the TrueCrypt mbr was blown away.


When you restored the TrueCrypt mbr with the rescue CD, the partition table was reverted back to the way it was before BackTrack, unless of course TrueCrypt leaves the partition table alone and only restores the mbr portion. The restoration of course undid the change to the partition table that let you access BackTrack.

Somewhere when you changed the partition table the Truecrypt code in the mbr got confused, and can't find Windows 7.

It's really hard to say, both TrueCrypt and Windows 7 are strange beasts when it comes to booting, at least they are to me.

Whatever happened, if you go ahead and decrypt the Windows 7 filesystem from Ubuntu "permanently", then you should be able to at least boot to it using the Super Grub Disk.

Furthermore, once you decrypt "permanently" to be able to boot into Windows 7 you can try to update the GRUB menu by booting into Ubuntu and issuing:

sudo update-grub

and reboot. You may have to hold down shift to unhide the GRUB menu at boot.

This should be good enough for now.

Good Luck!

breaker

Hi,

I tried that but only the Ubuntu boot options came up, nothing else. I did try holding shift too. The drive is already decrypted (permanently). Really have no Idea why this is happening :|

The MBR you posted has THIRD partition Active.

You need SECOND partition active, from the output of your "Boot Info Script".

Now, WHAT do you want to do ?

Having GRUB in the MBR is NOT a good idea.

Is it GRUB (Legacy) or GRUB 2?

What you need to do is EITHER:

• restore the original WIndows 7 MBR (and STOP fiddling with MBR's until you actually know what you are doing)
• make 2nd (second) partition active (the one that contains BOOTMGR and WINLOAD.EXE

OR:

• find a way from the GRUB you can now boot to, to get to it's command line and chainload second partition.

Wonko

Hi

It's GRUB 2 loader, I have tried restoring the original 7 MBR, It has no luck, BootRec /FixMbr - I have tried.
How can i make the second partition active?

Thanks

I installed gparted on my Ubuntu install and managed to boot into to my windows! THANK GOD.
Thank you all for your help.

Now how do I chose to boot windows or linux? using grub?

Thanks

The MBR you posted has THIRD partition Active.

You need SECOND partition active, from the output of your "Boot Info Script".

Now, WHAT do you want to do ?

Having GRUB in the MBR is NOT a good idea.

Is it GRUB (Legacy) or GRUB 2?

What you need to do is EITHER:

• restore the original WIndows 7 MBR (and STOP fiddling with MBR's until you actually know what you are doing)
• make 2nd (second) partition active (the one that contains BOOTMGR and WINLOAD.EXE

OR:

• find a way from the GRUB you can now boot to, to get to it's command line and chainload second partition.

Wonko

Well said. One should try to learn a little before playing. If you play with fire...

I missed the active partition bit... oops, thanks.

I installed gparted on my Ubuntu install and managed to boot into to my windows! THANK GOD.
Thank you all for your help.

Now how do I chose to boot windows or linux? using grub?

Thanks

Please tell us exactly to the letter each step you take. I know you used gparted, so I would hope to assume you used it to make #2 active (boot flag).

What I would do, is boot to Windows 7 and download and install EasyBCD. You should be able to use it to restore your Windows 7 mbr, and add an entry to your Windows 7 BCD to boot to Ubuntu. Just use their Linux chainloader thingy. And please read the EasyBCD help and website.

DO you know what the BCD is? You can use it with the Win7 loader to multiboot http://en.wikipedia....figuration_Data (just use EasyBCD).

I think you got lucky you didn't send your files down a black hole, lol.

The non-active 2nd partition of course would be why a TrueCrypt mbr boot code couldn't boot Windows... like a windows mbr bootstrap it must look for the active partition (and why wouldn't it). I'm told on Linux with GRUB or GRUB 2 you don't need to use a boot flag/active partition. At least some people on some forums claim they have done this... but I digress.

I wonder if when you installed BackTrack your partition table changed and the UUIDs of your partitions changed. (not sure how that might affect TrueCrypt also).

If you have a recovery partition for the Toshiba (don't use it), you might be able to check by doing this: http://www.ehow.com/...-partition.html

later,

breaker


EDIT: typo

Edited by breaker, 13 November 2010 - 04:51 AM.

Hey,

I used gparted on Ubuntu and just changed the flag on the WINDOWS drive to "boot" - Then I rebooted, it said BOOTMGR MISSING press ctrl + alt + delete. I put my recovery disk in and done BootRec /fixmbr and BootRec /RebuildBcd - Worked fine!

I installed Grub2 on Ubuntu and added to my grub.lst :

title Windows 7
root (hd0,1)
savedefault
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

Worked perfectly.

Before all this I had to insert my truecrypt recovery media to decrypt my drive.

I do have another problem now, which has only just started occuring. "Display driver has stopped working and recovered successfully" - It does this every 30 seconds or when i move the mouse, will this have anything to do with my prior issues?

Kind Regards

title Windows 7
root (hd0,1)
savedefault
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

Most of the above is pointless.
You don't need to remap anything, and in any case you don't use the re.mapping that you also failed to hook.
This will work EXACTLY as the above:

title Windows 7
root (hd0,1)
savedefault
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

but additionally, there is no no need to "savedefault" EACH time, unless your other entries set it also.
You only make a partition active once, unless you use "makeactive" in other entries, and if you chainload it's bootsector or PBR you don't need to have it active.

Those entries look a lot like grub4dos or GRUB legacy.

However what you report is NOT accurate (or not possible).

Normal booting of Windows 7:
7 MBR->Active Partition-> 7 PBR-> BOOTMGR

With GRUB 2 installed to the MBR:
GRUB2 MBR->Whatever

With GRUB2 installed to the UBuntu PBR:
7 MBR->Active Partition-> GRUB 2 PBR-> Whatever

If the latter is what you do, since in the GRUB2 entry that boots Windows 7 you make it's partition active, next time you boot you wull boot Windows 7 directly and will not access GRUB 2 anymore.

On the other hand, if you installed GRUB 2 to the MBR (which will work) , this is NOT what you reported.

It makes no sense to say:

I installed Grub2 on Ubuntu

You either installed it to the MBR of the disk drive or to the (Ubuntu) partition bootsector.

Before all this I had to insert my truecrypt recovery media to decrypt my drive.

You posted that you had ALREADY decrypted the disk.

I do have another problem now, which has only just started occuring. "Display driver has stopped working and recovered successfully" - It does this every 30 seconds or when i move the mouse, will this have anything to do with my prior issues?

NO.
that's either a misconfigured driver or hardware problem UNconnected to booting, MBR's, PBR's and bootmanagers.


Completely unrelated, but not much , and JFYI:
http://www.boot-land...?...c=9297&st=7


Wonko

I'm confused too. GRUB2 has a completely different menu scheme than GRUB. At least you were able to repair the W7 BCD and reinstall the W7 mbr, but in turn that would have removed the GRUB code from the mbr which is fine, you just need to settle on which loader to use if you multi-boot.

Just remember whether you install Linux or Windows the bootstrap code in the mbr will be OVERWRITTEN with new code, UNLESS in the case of Linux you choose advanced settings to prevent this, OR back up your mbr first then restore it after.

Helpful information:

http://en.wikipedia....ter_boot_record
http://en.wikipedia....ume_boot_record

http://thestarman.pc...br/VistaMBR.htm

Whenever you install Windows™ Vista to a hard disk, even one with an existing MBR, its first sector will be overwritten with the Vista MBR code. (Note: It will also change the Volume Boot Record of the existing Active boot OS; usually found in the first partition of the PC's boot disk.) This code is also installed on blank hard drives when using Windows™ Vista's Disk Management utility.

AND - http://thestarman.pc...br/VistaVBR.htm

This applies to W7 also, although the BCD is slightly different.

At this point if the dual-booting is working I wouldn't change anything, unless you really understand what you are doing or back up your system.

As far as the video issue is that in Windows? You could delete and reinstall the video card driver to see if that fixes it, and no I don't see how that would relate to your other issues.

I'm curious about your system now, would you mind posting a new Boot Info Script RESULTS.TXT?

Thanks,

breaker

P.S. Thanks Wonko