TeraByte IfW backup with TrueCrypt?

Yah, it's easy for me to try this, but it's quicker to ask!

I want to do a full disk encryption of an Intel SSD (Windows 7) install using TrueCrypt. I currently use Image for Windows to back it up. It's a single C: drive, one partition. Easy peasy right?

After it is encrypted, will I still be able to use IfW as normal, where it'll backup the drive as it were unecrypted? (So full access to the files, etc?) I'd rather keep my backups to be around 30GB instead of 160GB, which is the actual size of the SSD.

Likewise, I assume that using Image for Linux to perform an offline backup is now out of the question since the drive will be encrypted? I can live with that, but then what do I do if I need a full restore? Can it restore the image to a new SSD in a pre-encrypted state so it boots fine....then I can have TrueCrypt do its magic again? Or does something else happen?

 

This KB article has details on using TrueCrypt with IFW.

Basically, in a normal (default) install IFW would back up the partition unencrypted in Windows. If you restored it you would need to reset the MBR, do a normal boot into Windows and then encrypt it again. Accessing the backup image with TBIView/TBIMount would be normal.

Using IFL GUI you can mount TrueCrypt partitions to back up or restore (this isn't yet detailed in the KB article). This allows you to back up an encrypted partition in the unencrypted state from outside Windows. You can also restore that image back into the encrypted state.

 

This thread has more information on using IFL GUI with TrueCrypt system encryption (not exactly the same scenario as yours, though).

 

Very cool. I knew I loved this program for a reason!