How do I restore Win 7 with truecrypt Encryption on entire drive

[aribluer]

I wanted to restore my laptop which I bought in 2012. It came with windows 7 64 bit and somewhere along the way I got viruses.

I installed Truecrypt which is software that lets you encrypt either 1 file or the entire system. Basically I set it up so that I had to enter a password to even log into Windows. (the entire system was encrypted).

Now I can not get to the log in screen for Windows. I think I should have uninstalled Truecrypt before I performed the restore to factory settings. BTW, my laptop is a HP Envy 15 3040 nr. My question would be is Windows 7 still in there somewhere? And if yes, how do I get rid of Truecrypt to access it? Thanks.

 

[OvenMaster]

According to the TrueCrypt manual, page 34 and 35 explain how to use the Rescue Disc that you made when you encrypted your system in order to get into Windows later if you have problems.

"If Windows is damaged and cannot start, the TrueCrypt Rescue Disk allows you to
permanently decrypt the partition/drive before Windows starts. In the Rescue Disk screen,
select Repair Options > Permanently decrypt system partition/drive. Enter the correct
password and wait until decryption is complete. Then you can e.g. boot your MS Windows
setup CD/DVD to repair your Windows installation. Note that this feature cannot be used to
decrypt a hidden volume within which a hidden operating system resides (see the section
Hidden Operating System).

Note: Alternatively, if Windows is damaged (cannot start) and you need to repair it (or
access files on it), you can avoid decrypting the system partition/drive by following these
steps: If you have multiple operating systems installed on your computer, boot the one that
does not require pre-boot authentication. If you do not have multiple operating systems
installed on your computer, you can boot a WinPE or BartPE CD/DVD or you can connect
your system drive as a secondary or external drive to another computer and then boot the
operating system installed on the computer. After you boot a system, run TrueCrypt, click
Select Device, select the affected system partition, click OK , select System > Mount
Without Pre-Boot Authentication, enter your pre-boot-authentication password and click
OK. The partition will be mounted as a regular TrueCrypt volume (data will be on-the-fly
decrypted/encrypted in RAM on access, as usual)."

 

[OvenMaster]

What's that? No Rescue Disc? No problem!

"To boot a TrueCrypt Rescue Disk, insert it into your CD/DVD drive and restart your computer. If the
TrueCrypt Rescue Disk screen does not appear (or if you do not see the ‘Repair Options’ item in
the ‘Keyboard Controls’ section of the screen), it is possible that your BIOS is configured to attempt
to boot from hard drives before CD/DVD drives. If that is the case, restart your computer, press F2
or Delete (as soon as you see a BIOS start-up screen), and wait until a BIOS configuration screen
appears. If no BIOS configuration screen appears, restart (reset) the computer again and start
pressing F2 or Delete repeatedly as soon as you restart (reset) the computer. When a BIOS
configuration screen appears, configure your BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD drive first (for
information on how to do so, please refer to the documentation for your BIOS/motherboard or
contact your computer vendor’s technical support team for assistance). Then restart your
computer. The TrueCrypt Rescue Disk screen should appear now. Note: In the TrueCrypt Rescue
Disk screen, you can select ‘Repair Options’ by pressing F8 on your keyboard.

If your Rescue Disk is damaged, you can create a new one by selecting System > Create Rescue
Disk. To find out whether your TrueCrypt Rescue Disk is damaged, insert it into your CD/DVD drive
and select System > Verify Rescue Disk."