Can't access luks-encrypted system partition anymore

[tact]

When you boot up, press "esc" when the grub menu comes up... do you have a choice of kernels there? Try choosing to boot with any/all of the older kernels you have listed in the grub-boot menu at boot time.

[slabo]

Yes, the description in the before post is correct. I have an older kernel on there, i'll try that and post results. (Can't do it right now.)

[slabo]

So, i was wrong: I only have a recovery kernel in the grub-menu. With that, it doesn't work either.

Enter LUKS passphrase:
[54.566755] padlock: VIA PadLock Hash Engine not detected.
modprobe: WARNING: Error inserting padlock_sha (/lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/kernel/drivers/crypto/padlock-sha.ko): No such device

Enter LUKS passphrase: I enter that 3 times and then...
Command failed: No key available with this passphrase.

cryptsetup: cryptsetup failed, bad password or options?
Enter LUKS passphrase:

I'm not sure, but i believe that i have not seen the padlock-error on that system before. Curiously enough, it always appears on my encrypted Xubuntu-8.04-notebook while booting, but only after entering the passphrase, and despite the error it then boots correctly.

[tact]

Don't worry about the via-padlock thing. Its not part of the problem. You can google around and get more info if needed.

Ok I am at a bit of a loss now how to advise you. Booting an older kernel would have just helped eliminate one possible problem. But you don't have one available. Its beyond my limited linux skills to take this further.

I hope someone else might be able to step up.

[slabo]

It does look pretty weird. Since nothing really changed on the bootpartition, the only thing i can think of is a physical defect on the disk, but that's a shot in the dark.

Thanks for trying to help anyway. I'll keep on trying for now, so if anybody else has an idea, i'd be grateful.

[tact]

what exactly happened between it working and then stopped working? anything of note?

[slabo]

The (possibly unfinished) update, which concerned gvfs, the last time the system worked. Otherwise, nothing that i noticed.

[Moop]

I'm not trying to hijack this thread but I'm having the same problem accessing a luks encrypted disk. I used the full disk encryption on the alternate install cd. By following the instructions here

Ok... so to confirm you positively ran these steps and cannot open the crypt-volume?

- boot from desktop liveCD and make sure you have an internet connection.
- Pull up a terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal)

sudo su  
apt-get install lvm2 cryptsetup
mkdir /media/test
modprobe dm-crypt
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda3 test

Nothing fails until you get to this point....and it is at this point you get the "Command failed: No key available with this passphrase." message.

Correct?

I enter the passphrase and get a command successful message. How do mount the disk? If I use

mount  /dev/sdc5 /media/test

I get a message "mount: unknown filesystem type 'crypto_LUKS'"

[slabo]

You should then be able to mount /dev/mapper/test to a directory of your choice.

[dchky]

Thanks Tact, Slabo, if I had the first clue how the thankyou thing works, I'd thank you.

"Works for me"