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how do I mount a SafeBoot encrypted Windows partition on Ubuntu (10.04)?

I have tried all these mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows tried changing fstab tried changing grub.cfg

I also installed ntfs config tool but it doesn't detect the windows partition

but sudo fdisk -l show me the windows partition on /dev/sda1

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  • Not programming.
    – leppie
    Sep 9, 2010 at 6:21

2 Answers 2

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You can't.

It's encrpyted. You didn't encrypt it so that your adversary could mount it in Ubuntu. On the contrary, you encrypted it so that none can mount it.

It may be telling you that /dev/sda1 is ntfs, maybe that's what's still written to the MBR but your encryption software doesn't care about the MBR table. If you could boot from another HD with Windows installed, it wouldn't mount this partition either.

What is written there is not a valid ntfs filesystem. It's something that only SafeBoot can understand after you give it your password.

Whether SafeBoot provides linux drivers that can read data from /dev/sda1 and make it available as a transparent ntfs filesystem, I don't know. I googled a bit and didn't find it.

PS: If SafeBoot indeed doesn't provide support to mount it under Ubuntu, which I believe is the case, perhaps you could try VirtualMachine solutions.

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  • Thanks :) since I can't mount the windows partition now, can you tell me how do I dual boot? When I switch on my laptop, it directly boots into Ubuntu without any grub menu. How do I fix this issue to show a grub menu and dual boot into both windows & ubuntu? Sep 13, 2010 at 4:48
  • I don't know if you can. Did you install Ubuntu afterwards? If yes, Ubuntu has overwritten your MBR and some unpartitioned blocks right after it. You will have to check with SafeBoot how to access your encrypted partition when the MBR is overwritten. You may google on how to show grub menu, but as the NTFS partition seems to be encrypted, I guess it won't let you boot it either. I don't know SafeBoot. I don't know if it needed something in the MBR or if it lives entirely inside the Windows partition, in which case it should still be bootable. You can try telling Super Grub Disk to boot it.
    – user39559
    Sep 13, 2010 at 18:09
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If the goal is to have an encrypted volume that's usable on both Windows and Linux, you can use TrueCrypt (install the easycrypt package on Ubuntu). But if you have a Safeboot volume and need to access it, I don't think you can do it from Linux. You may be able to run a Windows virtual machine under Linux to get indirect access.

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