Another Truecrypt problem

Hi,

So I have two sata hard drives (1 and 2 TB), encrypted as whole volumes. Those are considered as backups and almost always disconnected from computer. Some time ago my old computer (Asus mainboard) was damaged by lightning and I had to buy new maiboard, unfortunately it was Gygabyte. I never had time to reinstall Windows, only reinstalled drivers and everything worked kind of fine.
Now, the first question is: are there differences in drive access between Asus and Gygabyte mainboards or between older (purchased about 3 years ago) and newer (purchased about 0,5 ago) mainboards. By drive access I mean differences in reading headers used by Autocrypt, for example Asus could read headers from the first sector, and Gybabyte could read from the last sector... so it'd be about differences in logical allocation of sectors... maybe it's about different modes of reading, like LBA or non-LBA... I know nothing about it, I only heard about these modes.
I would be easier if the compression was performed in a file, then probably these modes would be autodetected, but when the drive appears to be unused, then everything is possible... maybe asus maiboards chooses different default read mode than Gygabyte... a hardware compatibility issue?
Maybe I should install linux on this computer or maybe I should move drives to another computer?

I use OTFBrutusGUI to search for different passwords (brute force attack). I remember my passwords more or less, but now I am not quite sure of them...
What is the best way to perform brute force attack? TCbrute2 does not work for me - it hangs up.

Mick

PS. I never overwrote headers on these encrypted hard drives, ie. there was never drive initialization done, etc.

 

This is very confusing. How did you install drivers, without an OS installed? How are you trying to mount the drives, if TC is not installed, on an OS?

Hardware has nothing to do with TC *software* mounting a volume. Could the lightening have damaged the external drives?

PD

 

Thanks for your answer.

Step-by-step explanation what happened:
1. Computer with Asus mainboard, TC is working fine
2. Lightning strike. Mainboard and processor burnt. System drive ok. Encrypted drives not connected.
3. Because I needed computer badly, I simply bought first mainboard I could find and it was a Gigabyte with a new processor (they were out of Asus boards just that one day, bummer). These were replaced. It was possible to start Windows in repair mode and right after that in normal mode. It was possible to uninstall Asus drivers, then install Gigabyte drivers. Everything worked fine (comparable to Asus or even better), except for the encrypted drives. Reinstalling Windows might also be a problem, as I lost the license keys for some software.
4. My attempts at decrypting the drives. I might have forgotten some parts of the password (single chars) as it is quite complicated, but I simply don't believe it... I already tried every possibility (with Brutus Gui)... so, seems to me that it's rather hardware issue... if it is possible at all...

Mick

 

If you encrypted non system partition/volume with TrueCrypt and this disk hasn't been connected during Windows repair then you should be able - after enter proper password - to mount/decrypt encrypted disk/partition/volume.
In fact you should be able to do this on any other computer where TrueCrypt is installed or run in portable mode.
Hardware has nothing to do in that case. There is one exception but from this FAQ it looks like TC doesn't support TPM (Trusted Platform Module): http://www.truecrypt.org/faq