Forgot trucryp password (not entierly hopeless)

[Bubben]

Before anyone says anything about backups or passwords. Yes I do have a backup but it's not super current. And yes I should take greater care when it comes to these things but all I can say is; 'you live, you learn'.

Here's my situation. I've been encrypting a few drives with truecrypt recently and I got reckless with the last one. I initiated the encryption before I left for work and when I came home I realized that the exact password had been buried somewhere in my mind. I paused the encryption (not sure if it maters?) in order to try a few different variations but without any luck.

Now, I do remember the gist of it so I should be able to create a reasonable list of passwords with something like PWGen(feel free to suggest other options), but the problem is finding a program or script that could go through it for me.

TCbrute seemed promising at first but it's not capable of working with an entire volume as of yet. So the question is whether there are any other utilities or scripts capable of doing just that? If not then would it perhaps be possible to create a script/macro of sorts that could do things a bit more 'straight-up' so to speak? I mean there's a text box and a 'next' button so wouldn't it be possible to automate something?

I run w7 but I assume that a bootable usb with linux would work fine if what I need isn't available for windows.

[legopc]

Before anyone says anything about backups or passwords. Yes I do have a backup but it's not super current. And yes I should take greater care to these things but all I can say is; 'you live, you learn'.

 

Here's my situation. I've been encrypting a few drives with truecrypt recently and I got reckless with the last one. I initiated the encryption before I left for work and when I came home I realized that the exact password had been buried somewhere in my mind. I paused the encryption (not sure if it maters?) in order to try a few different variations but without any luck.

 

Now, I do remember the gist of it so I should be able to create a reasonable list of passwords with something like PWGen(feel free to suggest other options), but the problem is finding a program or script that could go through it for me.

TCbrute seemed promising at first but it's not capable of working with an entire volume as of yet. So the question is whether there are any other utilities or scripts capable of doing just that? If not then would it perhaps be possible to create a script/macro of sorts that could do things a bit more 'straight-up' so to speak? I mean there's a text box and a 'next' button so wouldn't it be possible to automate something?

 

I run w7 but I assume that a bootable usb with linux would work fine if what I need isn't available for windows.

you could brute force it but you have to know how long it is if you use the larger letter(dont know the name) and if you used numbers if yes to all questions i think it will take about a few weeks 

[Bubben]

you could brute force it but you have to know how long it is if you use the larger letter(dont know the name) and if you used numbers if yes to all questions i think it will take about a few weeks 

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Yes I need an application that can essentially brute an encrypted volume, BUT it must also defer to an already compiled list of possible passwords, and as I said above; the main hindrance would seem to be that it's the entire drive and not just a part of it that's encrypted.

[legopc]

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Yes I need an application that can essentially brute an encrypted volume, BUT it must also defer to an already compiled list of possible passwords, and as I said above; the main hindrance would seem to be that it's the entire drive and not just a part of it that's encrypted.

aah yes yes ok ehm i once used a program to brute force a rar file and you could use a file with posible words but i dont think you could use it with what you want to do :L 

[dalekphalm]

Honestly if you've already compiled the list of possible passwords, then just try them. I can't imagine it being that large of a list, and testing out each password shouldn't take more than a few seconds each. I have a 20GB truecrypt file/folder (granted, not an entire volume, but still of decent size), and if I type in the incorrect password, it prompts immediately with zero delay. Alternatively if I type in the correct password, it starts the decryption sequence immediately as well (The actual decryption will of course vary with size, but you should know pretty much right away if it's working or not).

 

Granted it sucks being locked out of your own drives, but really, just spend a few minutes here and there when you're in between things to try another password on the list, and mark it off it if fails. You'll spend less time doing it this way than trying to figure out some way to automate the whole thing.

[Bubben]

Honestly if you've already compiled the list of possible passwords, then just try them. I can't imagine it being that large of a list, and testing out each password shouldn't take more than a few seconds each. I have a 20GB truecrypt file/folder (granted, not an entire volume, but still of decent size), and if I type in the incorrect password, it prompts immediately with zero delay. Alternatively if I type in the correct password, it starts the decryption sequence immediately as well (The actual decryption will of course vary with size, but you should know pretty much right away if it's working or not).

 

Granted it sucks being locked out of your own drives, but really, just spend a few minutes here and there when you're in between things to try another password on the list, and mark it off it if fails. You'll spend less time doing it this way than trying to figure out some way to automate the whole thing.

 

We're still talking about numbers in the thousands and while I haven't finalized the criteria yet it's still going to be too long to go over by hand. You bring up a good point though, the process of retrying passwords isn't exactly drawn out so (running the risk of sounding very ignorant) how hard could it really be to make something automated?

[Bubben]

I know how annoying it is to find an entirely fruitless thread such as this so I thought I'd at least conclude things.

I ended up giving up on the password recovery and settled for my backup. Something which MIGHT be helpful to people without backups tough is a program such as Recuva https://www.piriform.com/recuva. If you like me aborted an already initialized encryption then there's still the possibility that you can recover the files which haven't been encrypted yet. I performed a quick format before initiating a 'deep scan' in Recuva and it's definitely doing its things, so hopefully this'll be helpful to someone.