While trying to install Ubuntu 16.04 I gave a passphrase which I forgot. Now I am unable to access my HDD.
Please, help me to decrypt and access my files!
While trying to install Ubuntu 16.04 I gave a passphrase which I forgot. Now I am unable to access my HDD.
Please, help me to decrypt and access my files!
You just installed Ubuntu with the encryption option and forgot to write down your passphrase (or lost the paper you wrote it on).
Because it's a new installation the simplest solution is to install Ubuntu again this time writing down the passphrase for Encryption and keeping it in a safe place. You will lose all the information created since the first installation which hopefully is not very much.
I suggest when you install Ubuntu a second time don't encrypt your data. In the future if you have secret information to encrypt you can do it in a ~/.Private directory or all the /home directory and it's sub-directories. You can encrypt data any time after installation you don't have do to it during installation.
In order to restore all your data, you will need to reformat the drive, and then restore everything from your backups.
The process for restoring from backup will vary depending on what your backup solution was.
If your backup is encrypted, you will need to ensure you remember the encryption passphrase or code for it.