Upgrade to Windows 8 on encrypted drive fails and corrupted my TrueCrypt bios password

I just bought Windows 8, which I downloaded to my PC. The PC has full drive encryption, and I selected "Keep nothing" type of install for Windows 8.

When the downloader finished and restarted the computer, I was again prompted for by TrueCrypt password (which is accepted) and a few seconds later, saw the "Something went wrong" message in the installer.

The computer rebooted, and now it claims my TrueCrypt password is wrong. Wtf do I do now?

PS. I backed up everything and don't have a TrueCrypt rescue disk.

donahoed

Posted 2012-10-26T23:57:26.480

Reputation: 41

1Have you tried skipping authentication (by pressing Esc)? – DzinX – 2012-10-27T00:04:49.810

Safe procedure would be, make rescue disc, un-encrypt the drive, then upgrade, then re-encrypt. Better go over to the truecrypt forums...http://forums.truecrypt.org/

– Moab – 2012-10-27T01:08:12.867

It looks like that TrueCrypt bootloader is still there. Do you have a boot sector protection feature in your BIOS ? It might have prevented Windows 8 installer to overwrite it, leaving the old TrueCrypt there (hint: do you remember what happenned when you first installed TrueCrypt?) – ixe013 – 2012-10-27T02:45:07.847

1If you have backups, and chose to "keep nothing", you need to wipe the disk and remove all partitions before doing a reinstallation. The MBR that TrueCrypt has hijacked should be overwritten when you create a new partition. – None – 2012-10-27T03:25:18.553

Answers

Windows 8 has several new features incompatible with Truecrypt - the feature called Secure Boot, mainly; and possibly Windows 8's new hybrid boot. Therefore, full system drive encryption is not supported by Truecrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/sys-encryption-supported-os).

With Windows 8 Secure Boot enabled (by default on supported hardware) Truecrypt will never work (the point of Secure Boot is to prevent bootloader modification or "hijacking"). Check if you have Secure Boot enable first (http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/20208-secure-boot-confirm-enabled-disabled-windows-8-a.html).

I would consider using Windows 8 Bitlocker encryption in place of Truecrypt at this time as using Truecrypt with Windows 8 should be considered unstable and a "hack" at best.

Mark Lopez

Posted 2012-10-26T23:57:26.480

Reputation: 925

Assuming you can access your computer's BIOS menu, and you have a Windows ISO (XP, Vista, Seven, or 8), I would advise the following:

Boot from your Windows CD.
Choose "Advanced options", then "Recovey console"
Run fixmbr

This should overwrite TrueCrypt's bootloader, and make it possible to resume the setup. It is also possible that something went wrong with the setup, in which case you will have to start over, using the Windows 8 ISO.

Clément

Posted 2012-10-26T23:57:26.480

Reputation: 740