[ale] Help with data recovery

[Jim Ransone]

I tried the password and it acted busy for a little while and then asked
for the password again. Not sure what that means. I guess if I can figure
out the commands and try it in the terminal, maybe it would give me an
error message, which would be less mysterious.

On Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 10:26 PM Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you are super lucky, the old password might actually work.
>
> On August 21, 2020 9:05:40 PM EDT, Jim Ransone via Ale <ale at ale.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Bummer. As I said, I am not very tech savvy. I really don't even
>> understand encryption. This Deja Dup backup software was widely recommended
>> and encrypting all the files was the default. I didn't know enough to even
>> question this. Now I realize how stupid that was. They put warnings on
>> plastic bags so people don't suffocate themselves. You'd think they might
>> put a warning on software that encrypts all your data.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:37 PM SpaXpert, Inc. <spaxpert at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Unfortunately, if you lost your encryption key, then you're likely in
>>> the burnt toast department.  If you could find anyone to fix this situation
>>> you'd probably owe them a million bucks.  I've been working with Linux for
>>> over 25 years, and I'm definitely not the smartest ever, but it saves me
>>> from the bots.  That said, I would never encrypt my data with a sole
>>> encryption key that could be... never mind.
>>>
>>> Sad advice... I have a separate usb hard drive that I drag and drop the
>>> critical folders that I use for work occasionally.  That works for me, and
>>> everything is unencrypted.  10 years ago I lost tons of family videos and
>>> photos that I didn't backup due to a crappy hd controller on a crap
>>> motherboard.  Never again.
>>>
>>> I feel your pain.
>>> Doug.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 8:19 PM Jim Ransone via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hey all,
>>>>
>>>> I found this group when searching for a local computer repair place
>>>> that works on Linux stuff. I am not a programmer or particularly tech
>>>> savvy. I'm hoping I can get some advice here, be it a recommendation on
>>>> somewhere I can go to pay someone to fix this, or tips on how to fix it
>>>> myself.
>>>>
>>>> I did something that in retrospect seems completely boneheaded. I am
>>>> running Ubuntu Studio 20.04 on my laptop and was backing up my data to an
>>>> external hard drive using Deja Dup (which uses Duplicity.) I was trying to
>>>> fix some audio issues and somehow screwed things up pretty badly, so I
>>>> reinstalled Ubuntu Studio 20.04 hoping to take everything back to before
>>>> the audio problems. The reinstall erased everything. When I went to restore
>>>> my home folder from the backup, it's not working because of the encryption.
>>>> From an old forum thread I found about a similar situation, I was clued in
>>>> to the sad news that I probably erased the encryption key during the
>>>> reinstall. Doh! Suggestions included using testdisk to recover the data on
>>>> the laptop and manually restoring the encrypted files on the backup drive.
>>>> The latter seems very complicated and mysterious.
>>>>
>>>> I might be in over my head trying to do this myself. Anyone know of
>>>> anyone in the Atlanta area you would trust with a recovery job like this?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance for any advice or recommendations!
>>>>
>>>> Jim
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>>>>
>>>
> --
> "no government by experts in which the masses do not have the chance to
> inform the experts as to their needs can be anything but an oligarchy
> managed in the interests of the few.” - John Dewey
>
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