Rescue Disc "decrypt os" leaves an unusable raw/unknown FS partition
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Hello, I looked through the forums and documentation but apologies if I missed something somewhere.
I have been testing system encryption on a couple different make/model laptops, both running win 10 + UEFI/GPT installs, so been encrypting system partition vs. full disk. Everything works well, until I test out decryption using the rescue disk. Upon decrypting the partition, the system boots straight into win10 startup repair, which fails. Looking at the partitions using parted/gparted shows the partition as RAW or unknown filesystem type.
Since this happened on on two completely different machines I'm wondering if I'm missing something here. Is there a step I'm missing to get this partition readable as NTFS like it was pre-encryption? What needs to be done to get the system bootable again after using the "decrypt os" function in the veracrypt rescue disk?
No one has any guidance on this? I feel like I'm missing something, and just want to be able to decrypt a system partition and not lose access to everything. I would think it would be as simple as using the "decrypt os" function in the rescue disk, but I haven't had any luck so far...
Can you please share the encryption algorithm used?
What you are describing is a very serious problem since the decrypt OS functionnality should be staight forward to use.
There is problem in recovery disk. Probably the problem will be solved in the nearest beta.
As Alex said, there was a bug in the decrypt OS operation of the Rescue Disk in some configuration. That's why it was detected in our side.
This bug caused only the first 50 MiB of the partition to contain wrong decrypted data (decryption is done backwards, starting from the end of the disk). The rest of data on the disk are correctly decrypted.
Version 1.20-BETA1 available here contains a fix.
This is an unfortunate bug. Since only the first 50 MiB of the system partition is affected, it is technically possible to develop a tool to recover the content of these 50 MiB. Are the systems affected by this bug critical to you?
Such tools will require 1 to 2 weeks of development and testing, and it will need the original rescue disk to work.
I have implemented a mechanism in the Rescue Disk that allows making the decrypted system partition usable again: just extract the content of the zip file whose link is below over your existing Rescue Disk, boot over the modified Rescue Disk and then choose Decrypt OS. After typing the passwiord and PIM, it will automatically detect the issue and propose to fix it. Once fixed, just reboot, type your password and windows will start!
For 64-bit Windows: Patch_64bit_1.19_RescueDisk.zip
For 32-bit Windows: Patch_32bit_1.19_RescueDisk.zip
Does the following:
"After typing the password and PIM, it will automatically detect the issue and propose to fix it."
mean that I should expect to see different dialog from the rescue disk telling me it's detected the problem? I downloaded the rescue disk patch, extracted it over my existing rescue disk and when I selected "Decrypt OS" it ran just as I'd seen it run before.
Now, after running Decrypt OS with this patch, windows auto recovery won't even complete. Can't even do a complete reinstall from the recovery menu if I'd wanted to.
Last edit: Blah 2017-03-06
The thread here is 2 years old but even though I have a similar problem, after successful encryption of my OS (Windows 10 Home) partition , right after first reboot veracrypt sucked to boot from veracrypt loader so I had to grab the rescue USB stick and while trying to Decrypt OS, the VeraCrypt sucked to decrypt the partition although the password was correct. It first tries to decrypt 0 PciRoot , it failes, then tries to 2 PciRoot, then it reports Success
Start 290455552 Length 0
VolumeSize 254700247040
HiddenVolumeSize 0
flags 0x1
Decrypt?
When I hit Enter
It reports: Decryption is stoped
Invalid Parameter
And jumps back to the start menu and shows possible options.
When I hit y then Enter
It reports Done
And jumps back to the start menu and shows possible options. (What shall I do afterwards ? Shouldn't it automatically boot the OS ?)
VeraCrypt version is 1.24-Update6 (Tuesday March 10, 2020) .
I'd like to know if the bug regarding to decrypting the OS is still there ? And if I shall use For 64-bit Windows: Patch_64bit_1.19_RescueDisk.zip mentioned by @idrassi on 2017-01-10.
I am a lil' bit irritated. Any idea ? any help ?
Hello, this is happening with my system. Booting the testing phase on a system disk encryption doesn't go past the 'Success' message. Pressing esc, inputting wrong password doesn't work. It says 'Cannot find windows boot loader'. Using the Rescue disc - decrypt option says 'Done', but doesn't change anything.
I tried using the patch Idris posted above. But I can't boot into it. There's a BIOS message saying the security policy doesn't allow it.
This was on a newly refreshed Windows 10 system, I didn't make any changes to system policy - certainly not any changes to the BIOS.
Help? Please? I'll respond quickly to any questions. Thanks.
Hello, I have the same problem. I have created the rescue disk according to the instructions from veracrypt but it is not displayed in the boot options.
Does anyone have an idea?