Mounting LUKS encrypted drive from a failed pc: LVM2 error
 

Hello guys,

Here's a problem:

I have a hard drive from a failed laptop. This hard drive is fully encrypted (LUKS) (apart from /boot of course). Now I need to recover some data from it so I put it into a USB caddy. Former /boot (dev/sdb2) mounts automatically without any problem.

However when it comes to the main thing (/dev/sdb5) that's actually encrypted I run into LVM issue.

When I try to do this:

and successfully enter the passphrase, I get this error:

(GDecrypt reports this error like this: Detecting filesystem...done. Result: LVM2_member)

LVM indeed was used on the old system.

How do I work around it?

Thanks

Never mind, I figured it out - thanks mainly to this post:

http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Mou...VM_volume.html

Basically with the problem like mine the first thing needed is to install lvm2:

sudo apt-get install lvm2

Then I plug in USB drive and in desktop environment I'm prompted for a passphrase for the just attached encrypted volume. So I type in a passphrase. Nothing happens as this is LVM volume and it needs to be mounted differently.

So I do:

sudo pvs

Under VG column I find a name of the volume group I need.

Then:

sudo lvdisplay <volume_group_name>

Result gives me to volumes - one named 'swap' and the other - 'root'. Clearly it's the 'root' that I need to recover my data.

So the last thing I do:

sudo mount /dev/<volume_group_name>/<volume(in my case 'root')> /mnt

And there you go - I have my data back!