Another bitlocker problem!

[reedy]

After upgrading to windows 7 ultimate the other day I thought I would try out bitlocker, and locked a small 10gb partition on my hard drive no problem, then thought ok I'll do my portable HDD, so it started encrypting and got to 1.7% and said that I needed to run chkdsk /r so went into CMD and repaired it along with doing it in the tools menu on the drives properties, so tried encrypting it again and it got half way through after taking a few hours to do the 1st half so paused it and shut it down, booted it up the next day and it asked for my password so entered it and now it just hangs on the unlock wizard, does the same on another windows 7 laptop!

I have tried to unlock it in the CMD and which hasent worked, any other way I can unlock it to get to my files!
and formatting isnt an option, all my music/films/uni works etc are on there! and I really need it back!

help!

Cheers

 

[Jacee]

Did you make a recovery key and save it to a flash drive?
See Diagnostic and Recovery Tools (DaRt) Overview of Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset

 

[reedy]

yep, tried entering the key and it does the same, not responds....

 

[reedy]

any ideas?

 

[Jacee]

Did you click on the link I posted earlier --> Diagnostic and Recovery Tools (DaRt)

 

[reedy]

Yep I ha a quick look and seemed like it was more for formatting etc but just had a closer read and there should be some things that can help thanks, i'll give it ago

 

[reedy]

tried that, diddnt work im really stuck as its got things I need for uni on there

 

[n0th1n9]

You have a bad harddrive or at least a bad spot an the platter. I have a 250 GB hard drive with a bad spot on the platter that causes it to completely lockup. The only way to really use the harddrive is to have the first partition set 160 GB, the second partition set at 10 GB and the third partition set to 40GB. Then I delete the second partition as that is where the bad spot is on the platter.

 

[reedy]

but I cant get into it to create a partition not even in the recovery console....

 

[logicearth]

Well if the encryption process has failed part way though then recovery will be impossible to say the least. This is why you never encrypt a large HDD or partition with data on it. Encryption is very sensitive to any form of corruption, one bit out of place can bring the whole thing crashing down.

 

[n0th1n9]

As long as it is just a bad spot on the platter and the head that reads from the platter is not the problem, you should be able to use different computer to format you harddrive. This will stop your current commuter from resuming the encryption process where the fault is located on the harddrive. That is of course if the harddrive in question is not the primary drive and you don't have data loss worries.

 

[n0th1n9]

It looks like from your original post you have not enabled the auto unlock feature, from that computer just don't unlock it and instead try a quick format. After a quick format try to use your recovery tools.

 

[reedy]

It looks like from your original post you have not enabled the auto unlock feature, from that computer just don't unlock it and instead try a quick format. After a quick format try to use your recovery tools.

but wont I loose everything? would rarther try and save as much of it as I can, 300gb of films/music/games and uni work.

Is there anyway I can turn the auto unlock feature on without having to unlock the drive?

 

[n0th1n9]

You can turn the auto unlock on, but from what I gather, try to resume it's encryption on the bad spot on the harddrive thus causing it to hang. I don't know if you can decrypt the drive without unlocking first but you could try.

Performing a quick format doesn't really delete your data as it doesn't over write each sector on the harddrive. I am not familiar with the types of software used to recovery data in this kind of scenario so I couldn't help you there. I don't think you would be able recover data that has already been encrypted. The first thing I Would try to do is make a backup image of that harddrive (if it will let you) then try to restore that image to another drive of the same size. I don't know how this will turn out as far as the encrypted data goes, but maybe you will be able to decrypt your data.

 

[ccya965041]

For using Bitlocker to encrypt a hard disk,a full process is required,
you cannot pause on the half way and shut it down,
notice that when you encrypting your hard disk and you tried to close that process is impossible,
since the drive is encrypting,this is not like the one call EFS encryption,
EFS encryption can pause on half way and continue after shutdown the computer,but Bitlocker cannot.

I think you should try to continue encryption first if possible,
then decrypt the whole drive.

 

[reedy]

I've tried that, wont let be in to carry on encrypting.... Ive formated it and am using EnCase to get my files back, hopefully it'll work!

 

[ccya965041]

I've tried that, wont let be in to carry on encrypting.... Ive formated it and am using EnCase to get my files back, hopefully it'll work!

Hope we can hear your good news soon

 

[reedy]

Cheers guys been running it for 8 hours, still says iive got another 7 to go! so gonna leave it on overnight and see what it recovers in the morning, ive been told EnCase is one of the best for this sorta job so have to wait and see

 

[ccya965041]

Cheers guys been running it for 8 hours, still says iive got another 7 to go! so gonna leave it on overnight and see what it recovers in the morning, ive been told EnCase is one of the best for this sorta job so have to wait and see

Glad to hear it!
Make sure you use the bitlocker carefully,
or just use it for the flash drive(small capacity) only.

A big hard drive would be better to use bitlocker when you start to use it,
nothing inside to lower the risk for losing data.

If you're not sure how it works,don't attempt it on your important hard drive,
or any data drive.(Same with EFS encryption)

 

[mayurd]

Hello,

I have 1TB HDD and I was Encrypting it with Win 7 Ultimate, having 800GB data in it. Sadly, the HDD has external supply and it was disconnected from that power supply during the encryption. It stopped around 94%. Now, when I am trying to decrypt it, it has stopped at 84% for almost two hours. Please help urgent.

Update:
Also, when I tried to see its status with manage-bde the following:

Volume I: []
[Data Volume]

Size: Unknown GB
BitLocker Version: None
Conversion Status: Fully Decrypted
Percentage Encrypted: 0%
ERROR: An error occurred (code 0x80070057):
The parameter is incorrect.


But the decryption is still going.

Update 2:
The repair copied most of the files but it does not give access for the folders inside.