veracrypt broke my bios - now won't even go to password screen
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I installed veracrypt on my lenovo laptop which had windows 7
now after I got out of the shower I noticed my laptop is off (I did not shut it down myself)
I pushed the button to turn it back on, and it's stuck on this black screen which says in big white letters "Lenovo" and on the bottom right it says "bios"
I inserted rescue cd and turn off laptop and turned it back on, but no matter what F key I press, it will not go to boot menu. It just stays on the lenovo screen.
and when I press any key, whether F2 or delete or G or A or any key at all, it just makes a loud beep sound.
I am scared that I have lost all my data.
how can I get my computer to load to windows again?
When you perform system encryption with VeraCrypt, it will first perform a test of shutdown and at bootloader screen you enter your VeraCrypt password.
Did you succeed in booting into Windows after the test to begin the actual system encryption?
If not, try pressing the ESC key.
Enigma,
yes, the test was successful.
I almost never shut down my laptop. I encrypted last week and this is the first time the laptop has been shut down after encryption.
I did some more testing to provide you with as much information as possible.
if the hard drive is out, laptop goes to white lenovo on black background (and it says "energy star" on the top left. ) then it goes to this screen: "no bootable disk found. check cables"
but if the hard drive is in, it goes to white lenovo on black background, and it gets stuck there. if I press any key, it makes a scary beep sound like it's complaining why are you pressing these keys.
I cannot get into bios with hard drive in or out. I have tried various methods that lenovo website suggests. none work.
I also dont see any text on the bottom of the screen saying "press F2 to go to bios" - I think normally it should say something like that.
if I take out the hard drive from the lenovo laptop and put it in a dell laptop, it goes to the veracypt screen enter your password and pim. when I entered the correct password, it said something about hibernation and risk of data loss so I got scared and turned off the dell laptop.
Last edit: kevin andre 2020-09-15
To get access to your Lenovo data by using your Dell laptop with its own HDD to boot into Windows, you can install your Lenovo HDD as a secondary drive.
With VeraCrypt installed on the Dell laptop, you can mount the Lenovo HDD using the option "Mount partition using system encryption without pre-boot authentication". This will allow you to copy the data on the Lenovo HDD to another drive.
Sorry, I do not have any suggestions on how to fix your boot problems on your Lenovo laptop. Strange that you cannot even access the BIOS. You may need to begin press the key sequence for the BIOS immediately after hitting the power button.
Enigma,
thanks, I will try that. first I need to get a hard drive enclosure because I dont have one.
what if I flash my Lenovo bios? does veracrypt marry the bios to the hard drive?
VeraCrypt bootloader should be in the UEFI partition. I cannot answer your question if attempting to update the BIOS will allow you to see the VeraCrypt boot screen properly or be able to boot into Windows or make matters worse.
I was hoping your Dell laptop had two HDD bays internally to allow you to get your data off the Lenovo HDD.
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2024-07-12
if I put the lenovo hard drive in another laptop (maybe lenovo brand maybe not), turn on the laptop, and I am presented with the password/pim screen, and I put in the correct password, is there risk of data loss? would windows load and I could just pretend this is my old laptop and go on with my life?
Last edit: kevin andre 2020-09-15
You will likely encounter issues related to Windows not having the correct drivers on the other PC since it may have different hardware. Also, Windows license may not transfer without calling MS to get the license transferred to the other PC due to different computer.
I would post your question on the MS forum to get a better answer as to how to handle physically moving the system drive from one computer to another computer or search the internet.
I do not know the answer to your question regarding if there will be data loss since we do not know why your PC shutdown. Too many possible causes for the shutdown.
Did your PC go into hibernation mode and come out of hibernation mode successfully this past week while system encrypted? Prior to encrypting the system drive, did you PC use hibernation?
I am not sure why the Dell PC gave that warning.
while it was encrypted, it never went into hibernation mode because I had my power options to never turn off the hard drive.
prior to encrypting, I had hibernated and it would always come back.
yesterday I added a new user to windows and I can tell you, every time I have added a user to this lenovo laptop, for some reason the power options get messed up and if I dont touch the mouse for a while the laptop goes into hibernation. every time I add a new user I have to go to my power options and fix this, but I dont remember if I fixed it this time.
Are you sure it is F2 to get into BIOS instead of F1?
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht500217/
I have tried all keys that are even remotely possible, none work.
I was looking at lenovo's website and someone in 2010 who also had lenovo g560 had posted about the same exact problem I am facing with my lenovo, he was facing the same problem with truecrypt. same exact problem.
it turns out that this particular model checks the hard drive before loading the bios. encrypted hard drive = no bios
I need to decrypt my hard drive, back to the way it was last week, as if this whole thing never happened. Please tell me how to do this because I am not finding any clear instructions online.
I am having trouble using my rescue CD because
1) if the hard drive is in the laptop, rescue cd won't take over. screen gets stuck on lenovo logo.
2) if the hard drive is out, rescue CD takes over but it gives an error drive 0 does not exist.
I even tried starting the laptop without hard drive and quickly putting in the hard drive so maybe the CD won't realize the hard drive is not there, but I can't get it right.
how else can I decrypt the hard drive?
by the way, fyi I got a hard drive enclosure, mounted without pre-boot authentication, and saved my data, thanks for that.
Last edit: kevin andre 2020-09-18
Given that you cannot get your Lenovo to recognize the Rescue Disk unless the system drive is removed prevents decrypting the system drive on the Lenovo laptop.
What if you put the Lenovo system drive into the Dell machine by removing the Dell system drive and boot into the VeraCrypt Rescue Disk to decrypt the Lenovo system drive on the Dell laptop?
When the system decryption is finished, do not reboot on the Dell laptop. Turn-off the Dell laptop and remove the Lenovo drive from the Dell laptop and put it back into the Lenovo laptop.
If you get the VeraCrypt bootloader screen at boot-up, press ESC since Windows OS is decrypted. To remove the VeraCrypt bootloader, boot into Windows then open the VeraCrypt application and decrypt the system drive which should remove the VeraCrypt bootloader.
I don't know if this will work or make matters worse, but I am out of ideas.
At least you were able to get your data saved off the Lenovo system drive. Worse case scenario is to wipe the Lenovo drive on the Dell system, put the Lenovo drive back into the Lenovo laptop and perform a Windows install.
the dell laptop is refusing to run the rescue cd even though cd is first in boot menu. I had a really old toshiba laptop and I am decrypting using that. It's has 300,000 MiB to go and running at about 7 MiB per second so in about 12 hours it should be done.
fyi this is the lenovo forum thread that discusses this problem:
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-B-and-G-Series-Notebooks/G560-problems-TrueCrypt-BIOS-Touchpad/m-p/262653
the user leanovo says
"The problem IMHO is rather the super special BIOS software lenovo is using on the G560, that is expecting to read the first 200MB of the HDD before it even continues to start some boot loader code"
later on, he suggests just encrypting windows instead of the whole drive.
I don't understand the difference. isn't windows = the drive?
The Windows OS exists on the C partition which may not be the entire drive. You could have partitioned your system drive so that other data partitions existed on the drive. Example, you could have C (Windows OS), D, E, etc (data partitions) on the same drive in addition to Microsoft's hidden partitions.
When Windows used MBR format for the system drive, TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt could system encrypt the entire drive or only the system partition which is the C drive letter.
When Windows switched to using UEFI, in VeraCrypt, the whole drive option is greyed-out and you can only encrypt the C partition. If you have other data partitions on the system drive, you would have to encrypt them separately using the same password/PIM has the system drive if you wanted to mount them at the same time when you entered your password/PIM on the bootloader screen.
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/System%20Favorite%20Volumes.html
UEFI has hidden partitions that cannot be encrypted or your system will not boot. Hence, that is why you only have the C partition option for system encryption.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2020-09-18
thank you, so if I go to my computer and the only drive listed is C, then there would be no security concerns with just encrypting C i.e. there would be no difference between encrpyting the whole drive v. just C drive because in either case my information cannot be read without having the correct password?
Correct.
If I recall correctly, there is one big drawback to whole drive system encryption is the Rescue Disk only decrypts the C partition. If you had other data partitions on the system drive that were system encrypted using the whole drive option, you would not be able access or decrypt those partitions since the encryption key of the C partition is used for the other data partitions.
At least that is what I recall from the TrueCrypt forums. I don't know if VeraCrypt Rescue Disk has been updated to overcome the whole disk option when other data partitions exist on the system drive.
In my opinion, avoid the whole disk option.
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2020-09-18
thank you,
you have been a blessing
toshiba still decrypting at this time
Last edit: kevin andre 2020-09-18
hi bro pls i need help i download to my pc this softwawe name veracryp and i used it i test it befor i shutdown pc and it was good now my pc keep shut donw and off pls can i get help