grub cannot identify encrypted windows partition.

Hi :)

Please boot into Ubuntu eiher the one you installed or from the Ubuntu Cd using "Try It"
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
(rather than "install now"). Either way go up to the top taskbar and click on

Applications - Accessories - Terminal

to get to a command-line and the either copy&paste with the mouse or type in

sudo fdisk -l
sudo blkid

where "-l" is a lower-case "-L". From the LiveCd it wont ask for a password but from the installed Ubutnu it will want your normal user password, not your SuperUser/Root/Admin one. Please then copy&paste the results back into here. Firefox on the LiveCd should be able to find your internet connection so it should be possible to navigate into this thread in Launchpad.

Then hopefully we might work out how to do this from looking through
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GRUB2
or it's links. Anyway the first peice of info we are going to need are the addresses and sizes of the Windows partitions.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Please post partition table ( sudo fdisk -l ).

Boot on Ubuntu from hard drive, then run
    sudo update-grub
and reboot again to check if Windows is detected.

If Windows is encrypted, perhaps Ubuntu is unable to recognize Vista signature.
In this case, we will have to edit the file "40" in /etc/grub.

Thanks for answer.

When I installed Ubuntu (prior to posting this question), it resulted in corrupting my Windows partition (both the installation & recovery partition). I believe this was because I had resized the (encrypted) partition from Vista to make space for Ubuntu.

At the moment I am re-building the system to prior state and restoring the data (thankfully, I had a backup of the data...as in most of it). This is taking some time and therefore the delay in posting the info requested... perhaps I can get info requested by Tom faster...as it is from a Live CD....

I will install Ubuntu on an external drive to be able to figure this one out because its the first time a linux installation has caused so much diruption... (I guess not the installation itself, but its preparation...)

Please bear with me.. I will post the results of the above commands. Thank you.

Hi :)

Yes, Vista is very flaky about resizing partitions. Generally i thought that problem had mostly been sorted out by Service Pack 1 or 2 or something. Still i would stick with the initial advice to resize Vista from inside Vista otherwise it might still freak out. Odd really as normally it is safer to resize partitions when they are NOT mounted! Vista set things up so that the partition has to be mounted and therefore vulnerable to a multitude of potential problems.

Can you run a LiveCd or better still a LiveUsb session of Ubuntu? I did a full install of Ubuntu to an 8Gb Usb stick so that i can use any of the machines at work with all the multimedia
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu
stuff plus gimp so that i can read pretty much any formats people send me from their Windows or other machines to put up on the company website.

I think it is well worth avoiding reinstalling Vista if at all possible! Xp was great (after SP2) and Win7 seems great but Vista was awful. If your back-ups allow you to trawl through individual files then it might be worth seeing if Ubuntu can read all the formats you need. Do you have a lot of Publisher files? Publisher seems to be about the only format i can't read. If possible avoid Publisher and use something better if you are moving towards DTP. Personally i cheat and just use pdf edited in gimp and converted into png or gif for the website, with originals kept in ".doc" (not ".docx") so that everyone can read/edit them.

With any luck you might be able to avoid reinstalling Windows at all or at least keep away from Vista?
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

Ooops, i went completely off-track in my last post. What i meant to say was take all the time you need but when you pop back into the forum please re-post this as a new question and then in this thread give a link to your new thread.

Launchpad is really bad at handling old threads and anything after about 3 days old tends to need to get re-posted if not solved by then. I have posted bug-reports and made suggestions about it but they don't get far.

I only meant to put a side-note about trying to avoid Vista but somehow i went off on a rant, sorry!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again again :)

Encrypted partitions are always going to be a tad more difficult. If possible it might be worth setting up the dual-boot with partitions un-encrypted and then add the encryption later and modify the boot-loader? I don't know if that is possible.

Before resizing any Windows partition/drive it is worth defragging it and running "Clean Disk" or whatever it is called in Vista. The Windows installers tend to make a right mess of things so even after a fresh install it is worth running a defragger. Obviously the MS ones are flaky and can't handle system files which are the main files you need to defrag in Windows but "Perfect Disk" often gives a free 1 month trial

I hope something in all this helps!
Good luck and regards again from
Tom :)

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the advise (or advice !!)...unfortunately, cannot do away with Windows. For a living I work extensively on MS BI tools.

Everyone,
here is the output:

oh and /dev/sdb1 is my external HDD... the unencrypted one.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x73e0ff42

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 914 7340032 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 914 19458 148947968 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xba03c01f

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 14594 117220792+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="BCA2B632A2B5F0CE" TYPE="ntfs"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

? is there a better way to enter the output...

thanks for helping me out. rgds.

HI :)

Sadly Launchpad re-unformats the output so that is as good as it gets in here. However, the partitioning looks simple enough in this case so i don't think i need to translate it via my Calc/Excel spreadsheet. I really just wanted to see if there were any unexpected surprises.

sda1 = Recovery partition obviously
sda2 is Windows

sdb1 is up for grabs? If so then deleting sdb1 and making these might be ideal?

sdb1 Primary 8Gb as Ext3 for /
sdb2 Primary 5Gb(?) for swap
sdb3 Primary 15Gb as Ext4 for /home
sdb4 Extended
 . sdb5 Logical, the rest of the drive, as ntfs so that Ubuntu & Windows can share it?

When you install Ubuntu 2nd this time it should allow you to boot into the Windows on the internal drive. Once in Windows can you safely remove the external drive? After the boot-loader has finished and got you into Windows there seems no reason why you would be blocked from being able to remove it? If you can remove the external and get to a Windows command-line to run

fixmbr

then hopefully when you have not got the extyernal plugged in the machine will boot into Windows automatically but when the external is plugged in you should get the Grub-menu giving you both choices. This is the way i have it set-up at work. I set the bios boot-order to look for externals before internals, and i always put Cd up at the top so i can always a LiveCd if needed.

Does that sort of thing sound plausible?
Good luck with this!
Regards from
Tom :)

Hi again

Hmm, i forgot the trouble was trying to get the encrypted partitions booting with Windows on them. Mostly the guides seem to be very out-of-date, written for ancient versions of Ubuntu that are no longer used much
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedFilesystemHowto
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedFilesystemOnIntrepid

This one makes almost no sense to me but here it is
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EncryptedFilesystemsInstaller
I think it is a Developers Guide rather than a Users Guide

I didn't look through beyond a very fast glance, is there anything remotely useful?
Regards from
Tom :)