TrueCrypt 7.1a: Fresh hidden OS stucks at "Booting..."

Discussion in 'encryption problems' started by Magic Mushroom, May 16, 2018.

  1. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    As you can read in the title, I've used TrueCrypt 7.1a to create a hidden OS.
    After copying the real OS to the hidden partition the computer had to restart.
    After 1 and a half day of copying the data it stops at "Booting..." and does NOTHING.

    I've already tried to restore the volume header but it was of no use.

    Long story short >>
    3 Partitions:
    1. Fresh Win 7 Ultimate (100GB)
    2. The hidden partition (200GB)
    3. Unused, only to prevent encrypting the whole drive (rest)

    • Started TrueCrypt (Volumes with Fat32)
    • Encrypted hidden partition
    • Copied data to hidden partition
    • Stucks at "Booting..."

    ... I hope you can help me
     
  2. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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  3. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    the person who had the experience with this is no longer posting here. Not sure there is anyone here that can help you
     
  4. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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    @Magic Mushroom where did you download TrueCrypt from and did you checksum it?
     
  5. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    Do the posts still exists? Or did the person only mention that he/she had it without a solution?

    From Chip.de I guess, a long time ago
    I tried TrueCrypt once before (AES encryption; NTFS) and it worked, except the hidden OS. If I tried to start it, it had the error "Drive 0x80 (LBA) : [...] Options If Your HDD is Larger Than 1TB".
    So tried it again with better encryption and Fat32, where it ended with not booting after copying.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2018
  6. lofac

    lofac Registered Member

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  7. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    I was googling about 2 hours, before posting here. But I didn't find the right keywords to search for

    #Edit
    But what I read was that Windows only accepts NTFS. My systems are formatted in Fat32... maybe this is the reason why it can't startup.
    I'm going to do everything again, but this time with NTFS...

    I'll answere if it worked or not.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2018
  8. lofac

    lofac Registered Member

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    Yes, started from Vista, MS has put a limit on FAT32 partitions to be less than 32GB to force the use of NTFS.
    It should work with NTFS.
     
  9. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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  10. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    It has the same hashes, so I got the real TrueCrypt.

    I tried with NTFS and still stucks at "Booting..." ....
     
  11. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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  12. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    I'll give TrueCrypt one more try.
    I've reinstalled Windows 7 (now professional), but I have one minor question.
    I'm using AOMEI to partion my disk. What is the difference between splitting the partion OR creating a new partition?
    Can TrueCrypt / Veracrypt work with a splitted partition and created partition?
     
  13. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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    The MBR only allows 4 primary partitions, split partitions is just a way to make more.
    Read these two articles

    https://www.aspfree.com/c/a/windows-security/encrypting-partitions-with-truecrypt/

    https://www.aspfree.com/c/a/windows-security/creating-a-standard-encrypted-partition-with-truecrypt/

    Also it's probably worth mentioning security issues that were found in TrueCrypt 7.1a have been addressed in VeraCrypt including two critical ones with the TrueCrypt driver that the security audit missed.

    https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/truecrypt-encryption-software.html

    It could be possible that these were the "unfixed security issues" that the original TrueCrypt developers cited in their mysterious abandonment of the TrueCrypt project in the middle of the crowd funded security audit.
    I believe the message on the TrueCrypt website which had a warning highlighted in red was probably a cryptic warning that the NSA was involved.

    The message said,
    WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues

    Which you might read as,
    Warning: Using TrueCrypt is Not Secure
    As....
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2018
  14. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    I have only 2 partitions
    I've used Veracrypt and did everything like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7wCeZZMYD8 (except the passwords)
    To format my partition I used the Computer Management where I shrink the first partition to 99GB NTFS, the second partition 250GB NTFS, and a third partition with 350GB unallocated.
    Everything worked, except when I've installed the decoy system and encrypted the system partition, after the restart I got this error on getting into my hidden system (could still access my decoy OS):
    Code:
    drive 0x80(LBA): C/H/S= [...], Sector Count/Size= [...]
        Partition num: 0, active,   Filesystem type is unkown, partition type 0x07
        Partition num: 1,    ,   Filesystem type is unkown, partition type 0x07
    
    ****
    
    Options if your HDD is larger than 1TB:
    * Move your boot files to a smaller partition at the start of the HDD.
    * Format the HDD and allow Windows 7 to create a 100MB boot partition.
    * Shrink and move your partitions with GParted.
    
    Press any key to read more...
    I followed this post: https://superuser.com/a/803359
    But now there is only a blinking minus, not boot or anything else.
    That I got the 0x80 error was even in TrueCrypt, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong to get this 0x80 error...
     
  15. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    One thing that I didn't mention was that I didn't use "quick format" to shrink my volume. Did this may cause the error?
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2018
  16. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    Can no one help? :/
    I was searching for days now. The only way I've found was to fix MBR, but this destroys everything.
    If I press Enter to read more, then there is a command line for "grub >", and this is from linux, but I never had linux on this hdd.
     
  17. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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    Did you write to the VeraCrypt devs? If anyone knows anything it will be them.
     
  18. Magic Mushroom

    Magic Mushroom Registered Member

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    I've now encrypted my system partition without a hidden system and it works fine.
    Thanks anyway.
     
  19. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Sadly, I think you have the answer to can anyone help. To anyone thinking of encrypting you data this way be warned.
     
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