Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

How can I decrypt Vera-crypted 'system' drive on other computer? #21

Open
ghost opened this issue Aug 14, 2015 · 11 comments
Open

How can I decrypt Vera-crypted 'system' drive on other computer? #21

ghost opened this issue Aug 14, 2015 · 11 comments

Comments

@ghost
Copy link

ghost commented Aug 14, 2015

PC1: Encrypted entire 'System Drive' with VC

PC1's windows have problem, it goes straight to BSOD when booting.
So I took a HDD from PC1.
I want to decrypt it on PC2(and I know a password).

How can I do it?

Must:

  1. I don't want to pull out PC2's HDD.
  2. I have a HDD-to-USB cable set.
  3. VC installed on PC2.
@idrassi
Copy link
Member

idrassi commented Aug 30, 2015

Currently, only the rescue disk can be used to decrypt an encrypted system drive.
Decrypting system drive on another machine without a rescue disk is not supported currently.

It is planned to implement this feature although the original bootloader can not be restored since it is present in the rescue disk. The user will have to use a Windows installation disk to restore Windows bootloader.

@ghost
Copy link
Author

ghost commented Oct 17, 2015

Why can't I just remove HDD deom PC1 and decrypt it on PC2(running Windows & latest veracrypt)?

I really need to decrypt it now because of bad windows update. PC1 goes to unlimited loop, safe mode doesn't work, each time I have to imput password...

Please add it. I need it.

@ghost
Copy link
Author

ghost commented Oct 17, 2015

And I didn't have rescue disk. But I know the password.

@ghost
Copy link
Author

ghost commented Oct 17, 2015

The user will have to use a Windows installation disk to restore Windows bootloader.

I already have Windows 7 DVD. So it's OK.
I just want to decrypt the disk, insert Windows DVD to fix bootloader, and do something to fix this mess!

@ghost
Copy link
Author

ghost commented Oct 17, 2015

In recent days Microsoft send PCs untested/unstable updates. I'm the victim of M$.

@itscz-org
Copy link

itscz-org commented Nov 30, 2016

I just had to decrypt my sys using the rescue disc because of a broken windows and CloneZilla for some reason doesnot restore my VeraCrypt drive properly (any suggestions on this?), the Boot Loader passes however windows cannot found its own system later.

The Rescue Disc says this is really slow and YES IT IS. I plugged the drive onto another computer and can successfully mount, but not decrypt the partition. I would be so happy if there will be a permanently decrypt of system partition not in place in a future release.

@formtapez
Copy link

formtapez commented Mar 14, 2018

you can use veracrypt on a live linux system to mount your system partition (sda4 in my case), then "dd" the decrypted virtual blockdevice to a safe place, and write it back to disk:

  • boot a live linux system
  • install veracrypt
  • mount system partition using veracrypt (read-only!)
  • dd if=/dev/mapper/veracrypt1 of=/mnt/somewhere/decrypted.img bs=64M status=progress
  • unmount veracrypt
  • dd if=/mnt/somewhere/decrypted.img /dev/sda4 bs=64M status=progress
  • reboot

(Tested on Ubuntu 16.04 Live-Boot with crypted Win10-SSD in UEFI mode)

@ElectricRCAircraftGuy
Copy link

ElectricRCAircraftGuy commented Jul 31, 2019

Is this solved yet? This seemingly related Reddit post leads me to believe maybe it is: "Solved - turns out 1.22beta4 does solve the issue :)" (https://www.reddit.com/r/VeraCrypt/comments/7l7ap4/access_windows_encrypted_from_linux/).

@alt3r-3go
Copy link
Contributor

@ElectricRCAircraftGuy, this should be solved by now AFAICS from the Reddit thread and referenced GH issue. Just use the latest officially released version and feel free to report back if it doesn't.

@andreas-becker
Copy link
Contributor

@idrassi please mark as closed.

@r1bnc
Copy link

r1bnc commented Apr 24, 2021

I would like the option to decrypt system drive of another disk on another windows 10 with veracrypt installed or linux. Just had a problem with cloning veracrypt install and windows won't boot (need to bootrec /scanos, bootrec /rebuildbcd and bootrec /fixmbr). If anyone has idea on how to use Windows 10 Install disc and mount veracrypt system partition to execute those commands, it would really help.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment
Labels
None yet
Projects
None yet
Development

No branches or pull requests

7 participants