Hello all. I formatted my hdd to install a fresh copy of 8.1. When i boot up my lenovo T420, it takes me to the True Crypt boot loader password screen, because of that, i cannot install the OS. I have set my boot order to CD and also tried USB, but no luck. I thought if i formatted my HDD, it would allow me to by pass TrueCrypt nightmare. Please help. Also, for some reason i cannot boot my laptop into safe mode? Any feedback on that will help as well.
Super easy fix if its what I think it is. You likely formatted the system disk (a partition) and not the entire device. That is quite normal and I have seen your post in "different flavors" dozens of times over the years. The TC bootloader occupies much of the space that a normal MBR (master boot record) does. You just need to remove the bootloader and write/rebuild the MBR, its that easy. 1. If you have the TC rescue disk from when you encrypted the system disk, it will contain the original MBR. You can bring up the options (using the rescue disk) and select to restore the MBR, which will write back exactly what was there in that space before encryption. If you don't have the disk its still a few seconds to repair for what you need to do. See 2 below. 2. Absent the rescue disk you simply need to rebuild/repair the MBR on the disk using a "zillion" free software tools. Although I have many I use, when I post here I always mention Partition Wizard because its virtually idiot proof. You can use a bootable version of Partition Wizard and using the tool in RAM you can rebuild the MBR in seconds. I realize by saying seconds that would mean AFTER downloading the software and burning the bootable media - duhhh. You have nothing to fear since you are going to be re-doing the entire system disk anyway when you do the install. We can simply fix anything you do with Partition Wizard as long as you don't need any data currently on the platter. So relax.
