Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Si3655 and full disk encryption - help

[Arild Bjørk]

Over the years I've owned and used several different types of laptops,
but this one is about to drive me around the bend. It refuses to play
nice with full disk encryption. I've tried both Truecrypt 6.2a and
CompuSecs offer.

With both of them, the setup works like a charm. The test in Truecrypt
goes fine and it start encrypting. The same goes for CompuSec. The first
reboot I set the password and out of old habit I choose encrypting
before booting. When encryption is done in both programs, if I then
reboot the computer it tells me operating system not found. I can boot
the system with the rescue CD from Truecrypt and it boots and runs fine
without errors or warnings

With Truecrypt I've tried different approaches from full disk
encryption, to just the windows partition. I've tried to set up
multiboot if the restore function is causing problems. I've disabled
Norman Security Suite, but if it was causing a problem, the test would
have failed since it would have replaced the boot loader with the
original one. Last year I encrypted a large portable with 17' screen and
dual drives from FS. With it there was not a problem.

Thanks to Clonezilla and backups, I'm not giving up yet, but I really
need some advice. BIOS has very little settings, but I've notice one
Executable Bit. I'm now trying to disable it. I'm not getting my hopes
up high, though.

How do I get this laptop to use full disk encryption?

[Arild Bjørk]

Post by Arild Bjørk
Thanks to Clonezilla and backups, I'm not giving up yet, but I really
need some advice. BIOS has very little settings, but I've notice one
Executable Bit. I'm now trying to disable it. I'm not getting my hopes
up high, though.

Didn't work this way either. I tested rebooting several times after the
test, before starting the encryption and each time the Truecrypt boot
loader came up. I started encryption and when it was finished i shut
down the computer. I noticed that it was configuring updates on shut
down, but as far as I know I had shut off wifi. When I started it again:
Operating system not found. It booted fine with the rescue cd. Tried
restoring the Truecrypt loader back to the disk, but got the message
Operating System not found.

If there was boot protection in BIOS, the test would never have worked.
If it was software that restored the boot sector, it would have restored
it at the latest when I rebooted after the test, before activating the
encryption process, to see if the boot loader was still there. Why it
first fails when the drive is fully encrypted and after I reboot, I
can't explain.

Anyone?

[Mark F]

On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:35:16 +0200, Arild Bjørk

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Hash: SHA1
Over the years I've owned and used several different types of laptops,
but this one is about to drive me around the bend. It refuses to play
nice with full disk encryption. I've tried both Truecrypt 6.2a and
CompuSecs offer.
With both of them, the setup works like a charm. The test in Truecrypt
goes fine and it start encrypting. The same goes for CompuSec. The first
reboot I set the password and out of old habit I choose encrypting
before booting. When encryption is done in both programs, if I then
reboot the computer it tells me operating system not found. I can boot
the system with the rescue CD from Truecrypt and it boots and runs fine
without errors or warnings
With Truecrypt I've tried different approaches from full disk
encryption, to just the windows partition. I've tried to set up
multiboot if the restore function is causing problems. I've disabled
Norman Security Suite, but if it was causing a problem, the test would
have failed since it would have replaced the boot loader with the
original one. Last year I encrypted a large portable with 17' screen and
dual drives from FS. With it there was not a problem.
Thanks to Clonezilla and backups, I'm not giving up yet, but I really
need some advice. BIOS has very little settings, but I've notice one
Executable Bit. I'm now trying to disable it. I'm not getting my hopes
up high, though.
How do I get this laptop to use full disk encryption?

1. Try using some flavor of Linux to see if the problem is Windows
related. This also gives you a chance to do smaller trials.
2. See if you can encrypt a disk that isn't the system disk.

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[Arild Bjørk]

Post by Mark F
On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:35:16 +0200, Arild Bjørk

...

Post by Mark F
How do I get this laptop to use full disk encryption?

Post by Mark F
1. Try using some flavor of Linux to see if the problem is Windows
related. This also gives you a chance to do smaller trials.
2. See if you can encrypt a disk that isn't the system disk.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-925980.html

I've found this on the problem. But here it looks like ubuntu is
installing grub on the wrong partition.

How do the problems here relate to the problems with Truecrypt og
CompuSec. Is there something that I can do?

[Arild Bjørk]

Post by Arild Bjørk
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-925980.html
I've found this on the problem. But here it looks like ubuntu is
installing grub on the wrong partition.
How do the problems here relate to the problems with Truecrypt og
CompuSec. Is there something that I can do?

Removed all partitions except the active system partition. Encrypted it.
Test went fine, but after encryption I got the message "Operating System
Not Found".