Help recovering encrypted drive -- SOLVED
Posted: 11 Dec 2017, 00:38
I pledge something nice for whoever helps me to recover some important files from a hard disk that I have foolishly garbaged. I also pledge a matching reward to Christophe Grenier for his generosity in running this forum, and for being so helpful to us all! I won't say what the reward is, only that it has been sitting on this crashed disk for several years waiting to be recovered. And that I'm sure you will like it!
Sometime around 2011, I decided to make a FreeNAS backup system, and was using UNetbootin on my encrypted Ubuntu computer to burn a thumb drive. At this time UNetbootin would default to the system drive, and you can probably guess what happened! Instead of reformatting my USB drive, it began formatting my system drive instead. I stopped the program as soon as I realized what had happened, but my system HD was trashed -- my encrypted system drive. I believe it is LUKS.
I set the disk aside, and now I'd like to try to recover my files, if that is possible. I have a block copy of the disk to work with, and this is how it looks:
Hmmm. Can't upload a screenshot, so I'll transcribe. Sorry if any errors have crept in.
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Is there any hope of recovering this? If there's no nope, I'd appreciate someone telling me.
Thanks!
Sometime around 2011, I decided to make a FreeNAS backup system, and was using UNetbootin on my encrypted Ubuntu computer to burn a thumb drive. At this time UNetbootin would default to the system drive, and you can probably guess what happened! Instead of reformatting my USB drive, it began formatting my system drive instead. I stopped the program as soon as I realized what had happened, but my system HD was trashed -- my encrypted system drive. I believe it is LUKS.
I set the disk aside, and now I'd like to try to recover my files, if that is possible. I have a block copy of the disk to work with, and this is how it looks:
Hmmm. Can't upload a screenshot, so I'll transcribe. Sorry if any errors have crept in.
The crashed disk DOES boot, and asks for the disk password, which I hope is encouraging:/dev/sda - GParted
unallocated 698.39 GiB unallocated 2.05 TiB
/dev/sda1 [Encrypted] 7.81 MiB 7.81 MiB 0.00 B boot
unallocated unallocated 698.39 GiB --- ---
/dev/sda2 extended 243.17 MiB --- --- lba
/dev/sda5 ext2 243.14 Mib 100.33 MiB 142.81 MiB
unallocated unallocated 2.05 TiB --- ---
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File systems found on /dev/sda
#1: ext2/3/4, ReiserFs or XFS (243 Mib)
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gparted-roview-AI9bMk/
/tmp/gparted-roview-Al9bMk/ - File Manager
Warning, you are using the root account, you may harm your system.
DEVICES grub initrd.img-2.6.28-14-generic vmcoreinfo-2.6.28-16-generic
File System abi-2.6.28-11-generic initrd.img-2.6.28-15-generic vmcoreinfo-2.6.28-17-generic
Filesystem root abi-2.6.28-13-generic initrd.img-2.6.28-16-generic vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic
abi-2.6.28-14-generic initrd.img-2.6.28-17-generic vmlinuz-2.6.28-13-generic
PLACES abi-2.6.28-15-generic memtest86_.bin vmlinuz-2.6.28-14-generic
root abi-2.6.28-16-generic System.map-2.6.28-11-generic vmlinuz-2.6.28-15-generic
abi-2.6.28-17-generic System.map-2.6.28-13-generic vmlinuz-2.6.28-16-generic
NETWORK config-2.6.28-11-generic System.map-2.6.28-14-generic vmlinuz-2.6.28-17-generic
Browse Network config-2.6.28-13-generic System.map-2.6.28-15-generic
config-2.6.28-14-generic System.map-2.6.28-16-generic
config-2.6.28-15-generic System.map-2.6.28-17-generic
config-2.6.28-16-generic vmcoreinfo-2.6.28-11-generic
config-2.6.28-17-generic vmcoreinfo-2.6.28-13-generic
initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic vmcoreinfo-2.6.28-14-generic
initrd.img-2.6.28-13-generic vmcoreinfo-2.6.28-15-generic
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The File Manager under the crashed disk's system shows two unmounted devices, "255 MB Volume", and "8.2 MB Encrypted". I suspect the second is a fragment of my broken encrypted file system. Clicking on either one returns "No object for D-Bus interface".Boot from (hd0,4) ext2 75229f12-997f-426e-b320-d8c99b07c320
Starting up ...
Loading, please wait...
Command failed: no key available with this passphrase.
key slot 0 unlocked
Command successful.
File descriptor 3 left open
device-mapper: reload ioctl failed: Invalid argument
device-mapper: reload ioctl failed: Invalid argument
2 logical volume(s) in volume group "rabbit" now active
stdin: error 0
Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
-Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
-Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
-Check root= (did the system wait for the right device?)
-Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls/dev)
ALERT! /dev/mapper/rabbit-root does not exist. Dropping to shell.
BusyBox V1.10.2 (Ubuntu1:1.10.2-2ubuntu7) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
(initramfs)
Is there any hope of recovering this? If there's no nope, I'd appreciate someone telling me.
Thanks!