Ministation suddenly encrypted !?

[oriondelgado]

I purchased a 320 Gig's Buffalo Mini station with the Hardware Encryption option last year for back-up purposes ... I didn't need to encrypt my files for the whole year because I am living alone any way and I leave the back-up drive at home most of the time.

it worked flawlessly and perfectly for the whole year... never gave me any hard time... but last week I needed to go to a friend to fix his system and give him some software... He's running XP SP3, and I usually run 7-64 bit... the mini station was not recognized <only the virtual drive was recognized> and the autorun program told me to enter the password <also the Encryption/key white lamp is Blinking>.

I thought it's due to the Operating system, I ejected it , tried it on my laptop it's the same...

the last time I used this drive it was normally working, and I didn't encrypt it, I'm sure of this.

what could have happened ? And how am I going to access all the files inside the ministation <that's almost 300 gig's of my data <prog's , movies, personal pic's ... etc>

=-=

regards in advance,

Orion Delgado

[Dustrega]

Some computers will end up caching passwords to associate with security credentials (i.e. you log in to your profile and that is your master authentication).  It's possible that you did have encryption setup the whole time and upon connecting to your friend's computer triggered the request because the computer didn't immediately respond with credentials.  Also, if you didn't safely eject the device and connected it back to your computer the device is asking for a password as a confirmation.  These drives won't just encrypt the partition with all of your data on it as that would require formatting and your data would be gone anyway.  I would try some of the passwords that you would have used upon setup and see if you can get it unlocked.  Recovering an encrypted partition though is extremely difficult otherwise.

[oriondelgado]

but i did try every password that i use whether for my e-mails, accounts desktop or whatever... i tried the usual default password <the 12345, 00000> ... etc ... but none worked..

i had used the Norton Security sign-in manager <because i am running on Norton 360 v4.0>... but not any more, by time i was fed up from it and i disabled it.. so it's not the cause, and even if, i did try the password there.. and it was not working also.

i remember some -rare- times i did remove the device without the <eject/safe removal> utility.. but that never gave a trouble.. and would it trigger a password ?

all of all ... the problem is still giving me a hard time.. i am not considering to format it to restore the space,.. because really it's the data that i am caring about.. some of it is un-retrievable from any where else.

=-=

thanks for your help Dustrega.

 

[oriondelgado]

the problem is still on .. i couldn't figure out how the password is set ... and i can't remove it .. even the "Hint" page is blank .. and i am pretty sure i didn't put any passwords there.

=-=

any help there guys ? :smileysad:

[Dustrega]

The problem might have been the "unsafe" removal of the device from your computer.  If there was a delayed write failure that accidentally triggered the password request then there's no way of telling what the password could be.  Rule of thumb from here on would be to safely eject the device before disconnecting it.  My apologies but you'll have to have the drive reformatted.

[oriondelgado]

thanks for ur reply Dustrega,

I can't imagine how did that happen, but it would be so silly if it's becaus of the un-safe removal of the device... usually i do eject the device 1st .. but some times when u r on the run u just pull the usb and that's it.. or when the device refuses to eject ...etc .

 

I am trying to find if there's a software to decrypt / break the passwork .. i don't know even if it's possible from what i read it's said it's hard .. but "Hard" is acceptable to me because "Formatting" is a terrible option :(

 

SERIOUSLY ! ONLINE BACKUP is the best :S

=-=

regards

[davo]

 

oriondelgado wrote:

SERIOUSLY ! ONLINE BACKUP is the best :S

=-=

regards

 

correction, any kind of backup is better than what you had, which was nothing. if your unit is saying it now needs a password then basically your data is gone. encryption is there for a reason, to encrypt data and protect it from people accessing it.

I wish you good luck but then chances of you getting your data back are 5% at best.