Hello.
In this post, I am linking to an archive where I have hosted a USB flash drive image containing a WinPE with Diskcryptor and Macrium Reflect. From here on, I am referring to a USB flash drive as a UFD. After the image is applied to a UFD, a 64-bit PC should be capable of booting the WinPE from the drive, using legacy boot mode.
Many new computers that boot in UEFI mode by default come with an option to change the boot method to legacy mode, and this option is in the motherboard settings. The Windows 8 operating system is typically installed so that booting it in legacy mode is not possible. So if you need to change the boot mode from UEFI to legacy for booting the UFD, remember to change the boot mode back to UEFI (with secureboot) when you want to boot Windows.
So if you encrypted a Windows installation that boots by UEFI which became unbootable after the encryption, and you will be using this WinPE to decrypt it, the procedure is like this:
1) Get the archive and put the image on a UFD.
2) Change the boot method from UEFI to legacy.
3) Boot the UFD and decrypt the drive with Diskcryptor.
4) Change the boot method back to UEFI.
5) Run Windows.
If you are going to use my WinPE, please read this carefully.The most important warning here is that you must leave the Macrium Reflect window open while you are running the WinPE, or the computer will suddenly shut off. Do not forget this. I suggest that you start the WinPE and close the Macrium Reflect window to see what I mean before you use Diskcryptor. Please do not forget about leaving the Macrium Reflect window open during operations.If you use the archive to install the WinPE onto a UFD, please use a UFD that
you do not need to use later for another purpose, and which has more than 500MB of capacity. It should certainly not have any files on it that you are saving, because they will be deleted. What is more, the deletion of the files by may not prevent their future detection.
Also, please be advised that the total capacity of the UFD will drop to about 500 MB when it contains the WinPE. The original capacity of the UFD drive should be recoverable by following the procedure discussed at the end of the post.
The archive is compressed. It can be decompressed with an application called 7 Zip.
The password to open the archive is as follows:
HelpMeDC99
The UFD image is the file named "DC_USB_64.bin".
The archive also contains an application called ImageUSB from PassMark. You should be able to run the application and use it to write the UFD image (DC_USB_64.bin) to one of your UFDs.
Take good care to pick the intended target drive, and not another one that is attached to the computer.After you have booted the system on the UFD, Macrium Reflect will be open. Do not close the Macrium Reflect window while you are running Diskcryptor.
If you close Macrium Reflect, the computer will turn off immediately, even if Diskcryptor is working, and that event could result in
damage to a partition that Diskcryptor is accessing. So leave the Macrium window open until you are ready to shut the computer down.
The Diskcryptor program is in the ramdisk. In my case, this is drive X after I start the WinPE. To start Diskcryptor, browse to X:\program files\dcrypt and run dcrypt.exe.
Note that the drive where dcrypt.exe is located is not a permanent drive. Whatever files you intend to save should be saved elsewhere before you power down because the drive vanishes. The UFD, which in contrast is a permanent drive, can be expected to have a different drive letter.
When Diskcryptor is open in the WinPE, you will not be able to use the Diskcryptor window to jump into the files contained by a mounted partition. You have to use the PE Explorer to get into the files.
In the event that you need special characters to decrypt a drive, you may use Notepad. Just open a commmand prompt, type the command "notepad" and press enter. In Notepad, you can figure out how to key in your password. You may copy and paste it into Diskcryptor. You may enter special characters by using their Unicode numbers in decimal format. Unicode numbers are published on the internet with both decimal and hexadecimal formatting, and you need decimal if you are using the the technique that I refer to. The technique is to push alt, type a 4 digit number while alt is pushed, then release alt. All numbers entered in this manner should be four digits long. A Unicode number below 1000 should be entered with at least one leading zero.
To remove the WinPE from the UFD and to get the original capacity back, use ImageUSB to zero out the drive. You may abort the task before it finishes, because only the first 512 bytes need to be zeroed out. Then attach the UFD to a Windows computer and format it. This should restore the full capacity.
The archive is here:
https://yadi.sk/d/suBcJSGdfRgLdcorrection:This post used to say that the UFD drive is bootable in UEFI mode with secureboot enabled. I learned that the statement was an error, and it is not bootable in UEFI mode. You must use legacy compatibility mode to boot the drive. Then, you can use Diskcryptor with it. Find the legacy boot option in your motherboard settings. If your operating system requires the UEFI boot mode, remember to change your boot mode back to UEFI in your motherboard settings.
A text document inside the archive states that the UFD will be bootable by UEFI with secureboot enabled. This is incorrect, because a legacy mode boot is required.
