Main Ecrypted LVM not Accessible after Deleting a Different Encrypted LVM on USB HD

[jreece]

I installed Ubuntu 10.10 64 on my laptop with the entire 500gb setup as encrypted LVM. This has worked well for several months with no problems. During this time i have been backing up the data to an external usb drive (1tb) on a regular basis. The usb drive was not encrypted. So, I thought it would be a good idea to encrypt the backup drive too. I wiped out the backup drive and set it up as one large encrypted lvm and mbr. This seemed to work fine but immediately afterwards I decided to erase that and set it up as encrypted lvm guid instead of mbr. I couldn't delete it while logged into my desktop so i decided to do it from a bootable gparted usb stick. In gparted i erased the 1TB backup drive once again and planned on setting it up the way I wanted once I was logged back into my ubuntu desktop. Now I cant boot into my desktop with the following errors:

cryptsetup: evms_activate is not available
b0d) does not begin with /dev/mapper/

Then after waiting for a few minutes I get an error followed by (initramfs)

When booting from a live version of ubuntu the 250MB boot patition is recognized and 500 partion is there but it is labeled as empty/unused.

Also, I did choose to use the exact same passphrase as what is used on the main bootable drive when I set up the encrypted partition on the external 1TB drive.

Thanks for your help.

[bodhi.zazen]

Boot a live CD and try to mount (open) the crypt and LVM.

[jreece]

"When booting from a live version of ubuntu the 250MB boot patition is recognized and 500 partion is there but it is labeled as empty/unused."

Already tried that.

[bodhi.zazen]

"When booting from a live version of ubuntu the 250MB boot patition is recognized and 500 partion is there but it is labeled as empty/unused."

Already tried that.

It does not sound as if you know how to mount a crypt or a LVM with a live CD then.

See :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4530641

You need to install a few packages, then open them with the command line.

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdXY crypt

Change "sdXY" to the partition to decrypt.

Then continue with the LVM commands

sudo vgscan --mknodes
sudo vgchange -ay

Then mount the LVM

sudo mount /dev/mapper/your_lvm /mnt

[jreece]

Awesome, I'll try that when I get a chance in an hour or two. Thanks.

[jreece]

I tried that too and nothing happens and it doesn't prompt for password. I'm getting a little concerned because the disk utility shows the sda2 partition as free and unused, not encrypted.

[bodhi.zazen]

I tried that too and nothing happens and it doesn't prompt for password. I'm getting a little concerned because the disk utility shows the sda2 partition as free and unused, not encrypted.

Output of :

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 crypt

?

[jreece]

Just goes back to prompt. There is no output.

[bodhi.zazen]

Just goes back to prompt. There is no output.

That is odd. It should return something, can you copy-paste the output.

[jreece]

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 crypt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$