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I am unable to access my Ubuntu 16.04 files from my Windows 10 OS, because I had enabled encryption during installation. Is there a way I can decrypt and use my files from Windows? Else, my plan is to reinstall Ubuntu from a LiveUSB.

Before doing so, I plan to remove my Lenovo (D:) partition (since I have separate recovery media and don't plan to use Lenovo OneKey Recovery) which is about 20 Gb. I want to dedicate this space for the root partition, and reallocate the current root partition space to creating a separate home partition. Finally, I plan to increase my Linux swap space form 6 Gb to 18 Gb.

I plan to back up my files before doing all this of course (creating disk images, etc.). Could doing all this affect my files, installed packages, and 3rd party software?

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    When you say you "enabled encryption" do you mean that you used LUKS to encrypt the entire system or that you opted to encrypt only your home directory? Either way, I don't know that there's much you can do to get access from Windows, but it helps to have the details straight just in case. – b_laoshi Mar 27 '17 at 5:28
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    @halcyon, David Foerster is right. Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run awk '$3 == "ecryptfs"' /proc/mounts. Then run sudo cat /etc/crypttab. If the first command returns something, then you encrypted your home partition. If the second command returns something other than file not found, then you encrypted your whole system. – b_laoshi Mar 30 '17 at 2:59
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    @b_laoshi, this is what I get: From awk '$3 == "ecryptfs"' /proc/mounts /home/halcyon/.Private /home/halcyon ecryptfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=8e8dd57cb6f2732f,ecryptfs_sig=59806262b6b3090c,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16,ecryptfs_unlink_sigs 0 0 – halcyon Mar 31 '17 at 9:19
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    This is might what you have been looking for: askubuntu.com/a/4960/671810 – Mads03dk Apr 2 '17 at 18:03
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    @halcyon, I haven't actually played with it in a really long time. I honestly don't know what current options look like for write access from Windows. Check out this page. It looks promising, but it doesn't have a date on it. – b_laoshi Apr 4 '17 at 11:48
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Since there are two methods that you could have used (independently or in combination) to perform encryption, I'll touch on both separately. And then I'll address access from Windows.

You could have encrypted your entire disk with LUKS like this during install![sys-enc.png

Or you could have encrypted your home directory with ecryptfs like this during installhome-enc.png

Disk encryption with LUKS

If you encrypted your entire disk with LUKS, you may want to look into a program for Windows called LibreCrypt. I have used it with success in the past to access LUKS encrypted partitions from Windows 7.

Home directory encryption with ecryptfs

If you encrypted your home directory, there is currently no way to get at this from Windows. However, it is possible to remove the home directory encryption so long as you have enough disk space to make a duplicate of your home directory.

Accessing the Linux ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystems from Windows

Now, in theory, all you should need to do is mount your Linux file systems in Windows. I've not tried it, but supposedly, Ext2Read should enable you to mount ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystems in Windows. Furthermore, it is said to support LVM2 which will be important if you chose to use LVM when you installed.

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The home folder encrypted in Ubuntu cannot be decrypted from W's.

Copy the files from a Ubuntu Live session to an external drive and access the files from it using W's or to the W's partition.

You will need ecryptfs-utils and this answer Access Encrypted Home Folder

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