How-To Encrypt your Hard Drive with TrueCrypt

When you are sure that everything went according to plan and that you have passed the Pretest stage, you can begin to finally encrypt your drive. For real. The encryption process length depends on how big your hard drive is along with how many passes you’ve elected to perform under Wipe Mode. While you are allowed to use your computer during the encryption process, my personal recommendation is to just let it do its thing. If you have a really big hard drive, you might want to start the process and then leave it overnight to complete. You can also pause the encryption process and continue where you left off the next time but once again, I highly recommend you to complete the entire encryption under one go. Once started, TrueCrypt will first wipe out your deleted data space. If you’ve selected the three pass option, this space will be overwritten three times over with random data t0 ensure that no data can be recovered. Once that has completed, the actual encryption will begin.

Once the encryption process has completed 100%, you’re now officially protected with TrueCrypt. Every time you start your computer, you will be presented with the TrueCrypt boot loader (the one you saw during the Pretest) asking for your password. No password, no deal. No exceptions. Nada. But does this really work? How do we know? Well, the most common method a hacker will use to gain unauthorized access to your hard disk is to boot to some sort of Linux live operating system via a CD/DVD. I’ve always used Puppy Linux to test these sorts of scenarios so that’s what I’ll do here. Below, you’ll see a before and after picture. With the former, you can clearly see that I have complete access to the hard disk. The disks (starting with SDA1) appear right inside Puppy Linux and all I need to do is click on it. With the drive being mounted, I now can freely browse within it for anything I want provided that the files are not protected with a different encryption scheme. However, once my drive has been encrypted with TrueCrypt, you can now see in the second picture that the disks doesn’t even appear within Puppy Linux! It completely disappeared! I don’t even get a access denied message. How rude!

Repair Options

Deploying any type of encryption scheme is bound to be disastrous if some type of backup plan isn’t implemented. At any given moment, you can lost access to all your data. Highly unlikely but definitely possible. TrueCrypt knows this and that is why they included some safety measures to ensure that you do not lose access to your hard disk and data. With the rescue disc created earlier, you can use it in when problems arise. Usually, if you can boot into Windows, you can use TrueCrypt’s own utility to perform the necessary functions. However, for times where you can’t get into Windows, you’ll need the rescue disc. There’s not much going on in the disc but for four major option choices, which I’ll go over here. To use the rescue disc, you’ll need to configure your computer to boot from the CD/DVD drive first.

It’s necessary for you to remember that the rescue disc you created during the TrueCrypt process is special as it includes data specific to your implementation. If you lose your disc and can’t boot into Windows, you cannot simply just borrow or create another one on a different computer to use on your own computer. If you did lose your rescue disc, you can create another one on your own computer provided that you can boot into Windows and start the TrueCrypt utility. Also, remember that even with possession of the rescue disc, it can be rendered useless if you have forgotten your password! Therefore, even if you give away your rescue disc along with your computer to a stranger, it will be completely useless to them.

Permanently decrypt system partition/drive

This option is used if you want to completely decrypt your hard drive. It could be either that you are experiencing difficulties and can’t boot into Windows or that you no longer have a need for hard disk encryption on your computer. By decrypting your hard disk completely, you’ll go back to how it was prior to using TrueCrypt. You’ll no longer have to type in your password on every startup and your data will be unencrypted, provided that you didn’t use another type of encryption to protect other sensitive files on the disk.

Restore TrueCrypt Boot Loader

If for any reason you do not see the TrueCrypt boot loader during startup, it may be corrupted and damaged. Without the boot loader, you won’t get a chance to type in your master password which therefore results in a lockout (although you could use the TrueCrypt boot loader on the rescue disc). Use this option if you find yourself in this scenario.

Restore Key Data

There is a slight possibility that even if you find yourself entering in the right password, TrueCrypt will deny you access. This happens due to corruption of your master key data. Luckily, you can repair this problem by selecting this repair option from the menu. Obviously, you’ll need to provide your password in order to use this function. Also, whatever password was used for that rescue disc will be restored. Therefore, it’s important that when you change your master password, you also destroy the old rescue disc and create a new one.

Restore original system loader

This option is mainly used in conjunction with option 1 when you decrypt your entire drive. When you first created the rescue disc, it also saved a copy of your original boot loader to this disc. Therefore, you can restore it after the decryption process so that your system will return to the way it functioned before.

If you haven’t done so already, consider implementing a sound backup plan to work in conjunction with your encryption scheme. You may feel proud that the bad buy can’t get into your data but now what? You’re left with no computer to use and worst of all, all of your data is on the stolen computer. The bad guy can’t get your data but hey, neither can you! That is why you need to implement some type of backup scheme that works for you. It doesn’t even matter if all you use is a simple USB stick to backup your documents. Just use something that works for you! If you need some tips on how to get started, take a look at some of these articles:

Creating a Simple Backup Strategy

Creating a Full System Image Backup

Syncing your Documents with Dropbox

Virtual Hard Drives Makes Efficient Backups

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