Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Johannes Bauer]

Dear list,

I've read a whole lot about problems booting Windows through Grub - but
found no solution at all. By playing around with the options, I found a
solution which *almost* works:

My main (Linux) drive is /dev/sda. / and /boot are on /sda1, i.e. (hd0,1).
My crap (Windows) drive is /dev/sdb. There is only one partition
/dev/sdb1. The whole drive has been encrypted with TrueCrypt.

I've copied the MBR of /dev/sdb to /boot/truecrypt.mbr. Then I used the
following grub entry:

menuentry "Sigh" {
	insmod drivemap
	set root=(hd1,1)
	drivemap (hd0) (hd1)
	drivemap (hd1) (hd0)
	chainloader (hd0,1)/boot/truecrypt.mbr
	boot
}

This gets further than all other tutorials I've read before - it makes
Truecrypt actually ask for my password. After I've entered it
successfully, the Windows logo comes up and it appears to be booting.
However, after about 20 seocnds, it just resets hard. The next time I
boot Windows (7, BTW) that way, I get a message saying that it crashed
during bootup and if I want to use some kind of boot rescue restore
magic. When I say yes, a textmode progressbar comes up. When it reaches
100%, the computer again resets hard.

I have a feeling that I'm almost there but am missing something - can
somebody please help me?

Kind regards,
Johannes

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Johannes Bauer]

Johannes Bauer schrieb:

> I've read a whole lot about problems booting Windows through Grub - but
> found no solution at all. By playing around with the options, I found a
> solution which *almost* works:

[...] Using 1.97 - I forgot to mention that, sorry.

Kind regards,
Johannes

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Duboucher Thomas]

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Hash: SHA1

Johannes Bauer a écrit :
> Johannes Bauer schrieb:
> 
>> I've read a whole lot about problems booting Windows through Grub - but
>> found no solution at all. By playing around with the options, I found a
>> solution which *almost* works:
> 
> [...] Using 1.97 - I forgot to mention that, sorry.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Johannes
> 

	I suggest chainloading from bootmgr to Grub2, instead of the opposite.
You should give a try and it's not difficult to do.
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Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Freitag, den 13.11.2009, 18:28 +0100 schrieb Johannes Bauer:
> Dear list,
> 
> I've read a whole lot about problems booting Windows through Grub - but
> found no solution at all. By playing around with the options, I found a
> solution which *almost* works:
> 
> My main (Linux) drive is /dev/sda. / and /boot are on /sda1, i.e. (hd0,1).
> My crap (Windows) drive is /dev/sdb. There is only one partition
> /dev/sdb1. The whole drive has been encrypted with TrueCrypt.
> 
> I've copied the MBR of /dev/sdb to /boot/truecrypt.mbr. Then I used the
> following grub entry:
> 
> menuentry "Sigh" {
> 	insmod drivemap
> 	set root=(hd1,1)
> 	drivemap (hd0) (hd1)
> 	drivemap (hd1) (hd0)
> 	chainloader (hd0,1)/boot/truecrypt.mbr
> 	boot
> }
> 
> This gets further than all other tutorials I've read before - it makes
> Truecrypt actually ask for my password. After I've entered it
> successfully, the Windows logo comes up and it appears to be booting.
> However, after about 20 seocnds, it just resets hard. The next time I
> boot Windows (7, BTW) that way, I get a message saying that it crashed
> during bootup and if I want to use some kind of boot rescue restore
> magic. When I say yes, a textmode progressbar comes up. When it reaches
> 100%, the computer again resets hard.
> 
> I have a feeling that I'm almost there but am missing something - can
> somebody please help me?
> 
> Kind regards,
> Johannes

On launchpad someone made a bugreport where removing the search and
drivemap commands from the generated Win 7 menu entry by os-prober
breaks booting it.
So I removed drivemap command for Vista and 7.
It wouldn't make much sense if the search line would break it.

Did you try without drivemap?
You could also try to directly chainload MBR with (hd1)
Note that there's a difference if you use set root=(hd1,1) chainloader
+1 or just chainloader (hd1,1)+1
So you could also play around a bit with them.
The root device gets into %dl register and so the bootcode can make use
of that one.
If you specify the device inside chainloader command only GRUB itself
knows that one.

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Johannes Bauer]

Duboucher Thomas schrieb:

> 	I suggest chainloading from bootmgr to Grub2, instead of the opposite.
> You should give a try and it's not difficult to do.

Actually, I'd rather not. The reason for this is that the Linux hard
drive is my productive drive and the Windows is only of secondary use
and rather dispensable. At any point in time I want to be able to
completely remove the Windows drive and have no impairment whatsoever to
my productive environment.

Also, I've just seen far too many fuckups with the crappy Windows boot
loader - I do not trust it at all. Thinking about booting my productive
environment through that junk gives me shivers.

I guess I'll keep try fiddling around.

Kind regards,
Johannes

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Johannes Bauer]

Felix Zielcke schrieb:

> On launchpad someone made a bugreport where removing the search and
> drivemap commands from the generated Win 7 menu entry by os-prober
> breaks booting it.
> So I removed drivemap command for Vista and 7.
> It wouldn't make much sense if the search line would break it.

Well, without the drivemap command, it doesn't boot up at all...

> Did you try without drivemap?

Yup. TrueCrypt immediately complains:

 TrueCrypt Boot Loader
Loader Damaged! Use Rescue Disk: [blabla]

> You could also try to directly chainload MBR with (hd1)

Well, that's the same as "chainloader (hd0,1)/boot/truecrypt.mbr", isn't
it? I tried it and they yielded the same result.

> Note that there's a difference if you use set root=(hd1,1) chainloader
> +1 or just chainloader (hd1,1)+1

The "chainloader (hd1,1)+1" which was what I originally tried does not
work at all since (hd1,1) is encrypted at that point and thus grub does
not know recognize the file format and won't boot - forcing the
chainload with "--force" causes the system to lock up at boot.

> So you could also play around a bit with them.
> The root device gets into %dl register and so the bootcode can make use
> of that one.
> If you specify the device inside chainloader command only GRUB itself
> knows that one.

Note that when I change the boot order in the BIOS to make the Windows
Disk the boot disk, the Windows boots up just fine. Is there any way
which is more "convincing" than drivemap?

Kind regards,
Johannes

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

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Johannes Bauer wrote:
> >Did you try without drivemap?
>   
>
> Yup. TrueCrypt immediately complains:
>
>  TrueCrypt Boot Loader
> Loader Damaged! Use Rescue Disk: [blabla]
>
>   
There are 2 kind of booters:
Type (a) always try to boot from first disk. They need drivemap.
Type (b) respect the disk passed in %dl and boot from it.
Apparently truecrypt is of type (a) and win7 is of type (b) and is
additionally incompatible with drivemap. I see 2 solutions:
1) Ask truecrypt to make their loader respect %dl and don't use drivemap
2) Find out why our drivemap isn't compatible with win7. I suspect we
need to modify some more info about disks for it to work. I've heard
that BIOS supplies mapping between its own drives and hardware drives. I
guess we need to modify it, however  don't know the details. Can you
gather the documentation about this subject?



-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko



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Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Samstag, den 14.11.2009, 13:22 +0100 schrieb Johannes Bauer:
> Felix Zielcke schrieb:
> 
> > On launchpad someone made a bugreport where removing the search and
> > drivemap commands from the generated Win 7 menu entry by os-prober
> > breaks booting it.
> > So I removed drivemap command for Vista and 7.
> > It wouldn't make much sense if the search line would break it.
> 
> Well, without the drivemap command, it doesn't boot up at all...
> 
> > Did you try without drivemap?
> 
> Yup. TrueCrypt immediately complains:
> 
>  TrueCrypt Boot Loader
> Loader Damaged! Use Rescue Disk: [blabla]
> 
> > You could also try to directly chainload MBR with (hd1)
> 
> Well, that's the same as "chainloader (hd0,1)/boot/truecrypt.mbr", isn't
> it? I tried it and they yielded the same result.

I meant with set root=(hd1) or set root=(hd0) and with/without drivemap.
As I said there's a difference if you do set root=(hd1) chainloader
(hd0)+1 or set root=(hd0) ; chainloader +1

> > Note that there's a difference if you use set root=(hd1,1) chainloader
> > +1 or just chainloader (hd1,1)+1
> 
> The "chainloader (hd1,1)+1" which was what I originally tried does not
> work at all since (hd1,1) is encrypted at that point and thus grub does
> not know recognize the file format and won't boot - forcing the
> chainload with "--force" causes the system to lock up at boot.
> 

MBR would be (hd1) or (hd0) not (hd1,1)

But maybe it's really like Vladimir thinks and Truecrypt loader and
windows bootloader are different in this case.

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Duboucher Thomas]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Felix Zielcke a écrit :
> MBR would be (hd1) or (hd0) not (hd1,1)
> 
> But maybe it's really like Vladimir thinks and Truecrypt loader and
> windows bootloader are different in this case.
> 

If you have a 'pro' version of Windows Seven, you can give a try with
Windows BitLocker.
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Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Freitag, den 27.11.2009, 13:11 +0100 schrieb Rob Power:
> Sorry for the double post, but I didn't get the mail back, so I
> thought I made a mistake in the sending.
> Thanks anyway.
> Rob
> 

Ah I just noticed you use google mail for the list.
I did that shortly once too and even though I had the list settings to
get my own mails back, Google seemed to discard my own list replies.

Checking the list archives always works, but it needs time until the
recent mails show up:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/


-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Rob Power]

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Sorry for the double post, but I didn't get the mail back, so I thought I
made a mistake in the sending.
Thanks anyway.
Rob

2009/11/27 Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko <phcoder@gmail.com>

> Rob Power wrote:
> > Hi to all!
> > I have a similar problem with this configuration:
> > sda1 : Ubuntu boot Partition
> > sda2 : Ubuntu Encrypted root
> > sda3 : Windows XP (other people have same problem with Vista)
> > encrypted with Truecrypt.
> > There's a bug report related to this problem here
> > (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/484102 ) opened
> > by another user.
> >
> You have posted the same bug report to the same list twice in last two
> days. Most people (including) just didn't have time yet to read through
> list and your double posting isn't making it easier. Your problem is
> that truecrypt booter and grub conflict for the use of mbr gap. Best
> solution to this problem is to make truecrypt multiboot-compliant. I
> shouldn't be difficult (you can have a look at how it was recently done
> in Haiku) but I won't spend any of my time on it
> > With grub-legacy everything works well: It chainloads the XP Truecrypt
> > boot manager from a dump file. Here's the old menu.lst.
> > ------------------- menu.lst ---------------------------
> > title Windows XP
> > rootnoverify (hd0,2)
> > makeactive
> > chainloader (hd0,0)/truecrypt.mbr
> > boot
> > ------------------------------
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Now, all what I get from Truecrypt boot loader is this message:
> > "TrueCrypt Boot Loader: Load damaged! Use Rescue Disk: Repair >
> > Options > Restore Truecrypt Boot Loader"
> > Here is my actual grub.cfg entry.
> > -------------------- grub.cfg ---------------------------
> > menuentry "Windows XP" {
> >         insmod chain
> >         set root=(hd0,3)
> >     parttool (hd0,3) boot+
> >         chainloader (hd0,1)/truecrypt.mbr
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > How did you succeed to make it boot?
> > I mean, you find a way using drivemap to swap hd0 and hd1: is there a
> > way to use drivemap for partitions? I suppose it's only for drives.
> > Is there another workaround? I'll be glad to try it on my system to
> > find the solution.
> > Thanks in advance.
> > Rob
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Grub-devel mailing list
> > Grub-devel@gnu.org
> > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
> >
>
>
> --
> Regards
> Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>
>

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Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Freitag, den 27.11.2009, 12:52 +0100 schrieb Rob Power:
> 
> Hi to all!
> I have a similar problem with this configuration:
> 

As Vladimir just replied 1 minute ago this mail to your 2nd reply,
there's absolutely no need to post, now 3 times, the same mail.
Seems like your mail system is broken, so I CC you this time.
Sending the same mail over and over again, only _de_creases the chances
that someone is willing to look at it.

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Rob Power]

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Hi to all!
I have a similar problem with this configuration:
sda1 : Ubuntu boot Partition
sda2 : Ubuntu Encrypted root
sda3 : Windows XP (other people have same problem with Vista) encrypted with
Truecrypt.
There's a bug report related to this problem here (
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/484102 ) opened by
another user.

With grub-legacy everything works well: It chainloads the XP Truecrypt boot
manager from a dump file. Here's the old menu.lst.
------------------- menu.lst ---------------------------
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader (hd0,0)/truecrypt.mbr
boot
------------------------------
------------------------------

Now, all what I get from Truecrypt boot loader is this message:
"TrueCrypt Boot Loader: Load damaged! Use Rescue Disk: Repair > Options >
Restore Truecrypt Boot Loader"
Here is my actual grub.cfg entry.
-------------------- grub.cfg ---------------------------
menuentry "Windows XP" {
        insmod chain
        set root=(hd0,3)
    parttool (hd0,3) boot+
        chainloader (hd0,1)/truecrypt.mbr
-------------------------------------------------------------

How did you succeed to make it boot?
I mean, you find a way using drivemap to swap hd0 and hd1: is there a way to
use drivemap for partitions? I suppose it's only for drives.
Is there another workaround? I'll be glad to try it on my system to find the
solution.
Thanks in advance.
Rob

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Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

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Rob Power wrote:
> Hi to all!
> I have a similar problem with this configuration:
> sda1 : Ubuntu boot Partition
> sda2 : Ubuntu Encrypted root
> sda3 : Windows XP (other people have same problem with Vista)
> encrypted with Truecrypt.
> There's a bug report related to this problem here
> (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/484102 ) opened
> by another user.
>
You have posted the same bug report to the same list twice in last two
days. Most people (including) just didn't have time yet to read through
list and your double posting isn't making it easier. Your problem is
that truecrypt booter and grub conflict for the use of mbr gap. Best
solution to this problem is to make truecrypt multiboot-compliant. I
shouldn't be difficult (you can have a look at how it was recently done
in Haiku) but I won't spend any of my time on it
> With grub-legacy everything works well: It chainloads the XP Truecrypt
> boot manager from a dump file. Here's the old menu.lst.
> ------------------- menu.lst ---------------------------
> title Windows XP
> rootnoverify (hd0,2)
> makeactive
> chainloader (hd0,0)/truecrypt.mbr
> boot
> ------------------------------
> ------------------------------
>
> Now, all what I get from Truecrypt boot loader is this message:
> "TrueCrypt Boot Loader: Load damaged! Use Rescue Disk: Repair >
> Options > Restore Truecrypt Boot Loader"
> Here is my actual grub.cfg entry.
> -------------------- grub.cfg ---------------------------
> menuentry "Windows XP" {
>         insmod chain
>         set root=(hd0,3)
>     parttool (hd0,3) boot+
>         chainloader (hd0,1)/truecrypt.mbr
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> How did you succeed to make it boot?
> I mean, you find a way using drivemap to swap hd0 and hd1: is there a
> way to use drivemap for partitions? I suppose it's only for drives.
> Is there another workaround? I'll be glad to try it on my system to
> find the solution.
> Thanks in advance.
> Rob
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>   


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko



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Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Rob Power]

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Hi to all!
I have a similar problem with this configuration:
sda1 : Ubuntu boot Partition
sda2 : Ubuntu Encrypted root
sda3 : Windows XP (other people have same problem with Vista) encrypted with
Truecrypt.
There's a bug report related to this problem here (
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/484102 ) opened by
another user.

With grub-legacy everything works well: It chainloads the XP Truecrypt boot
manager from a dump file. Here's the old menu.lst.
------------------- menu.lst ---------------------------
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader (hd0,0)/truecrypt.mbr
boot
------------------------------
------------------------------

Now, all what I get from Truecrypt boot loader is this message:
"TrueCrypt Boot Loader: Load damaged! Use Rescue Disk: Repair > Options >
Restore Truecrypt Boot Loader"
Here is my actual grub.cfg entry.
-------------------- grub.cfg ---------------------------
menuentry "Windows XP" {
        insmod chain
        set root=(hd0,3)
    parttool (hd0,3) boot+
        chainloader (hd0,1)/truecrypt.mbr
-------------------------------------------------------------

How did you succeed to make it boot?
I mean, you find a way using drivemap to swap hd0 and hd1: is there a way to
use drivemap for partitions? I suppose it's only for drives.
Is there another workaround? I'll be glad to try it on my system to find the
solution.
Thanks in advance.
Rob

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Re: Booting TrueCrypt Windows Hard Drive

[Rob Power]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1430 bytes --]

Hi to all!
I have a similar problem with this configuration:
sda1 : Ubuntu boot Partition
sda2 : Ubuntu Encrypted root
sda3 : Windows XP (other people have same problem with Vista) encrypted with
Truecrypt.
There's a bug report related to this problem here (
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/484102 ) opened by
another user.

With grub-legacy everything works well: It chainloads the XP Truecrypt boot
manager from a dump file. Here's the old menu.lst.
------------------- menu.lst ---------------------------
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader (hd0,0)/truecrypt.mbr
boot
------------------------------
------------------------------

Now, all what I get from Truecrypt boot loader is this message:
"TrueCrypt Boot Loader: Load damaged! Use Rescue Disk: Repair > Options >
Restore Truecrypt Boot Loader"
Here is my actual grub.cfg entry.
-------------------- grub.cfg ---------------------------
menuentry "Windows XP" {
        insmod chain
        set root=(hd0,3)
    parttool (hd0,3) boot+
        chainloader (hd0,1)/truecrypt.mbr
-------------------------------------------------------------

How did you succeed to make it boot?
I mean, you find a way using drivemap to swap hd0 and hd1: is there a way to
use drivemap for partitions? I suppose it's only for drives.
Is there another workaround? I'll be glad to try it on my system to find the
solution.
Thanks in advance.
Rob

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