Ubuntu

How to access a windows computer with safeboot

Asked by Chakib

Hello, I have a friend with a laptop with a hard drive protected with safeboot (McAfee), and she lost the password. the computer has Windows installed. Is it possible to access it with a linux live CD? can it read encrypted hard drives?

Thanks and regards,

Chakib

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Answered
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Lars Düsing (lars.duesing) said : 		#1

there is no way to access a safeboot encrypted drive without password known to me.
To be frank; Why encrypt a drive with a tool like safeboot when it would be such simple to recover the encrypted data.
Maybe McAfee support could help, but I doubt that.

Sorry for bad news,

Lars

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#2

I think the clue is that it's a Windows tool and therefore it's unlikely to be as good as it says it is. I would try an Ubuntu Cd as a LiveCd and probably poke around the DistroWatch pages to try to find a distro that is built to do this type of thing. Sorry i've only got the Wolvix page easily available but navigate from there
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix

I do agree with Lars and suggest trying to contact McFee to see if they have any helpful suggestions. They might be able to help more if you tell them you have some linux experience - whether they will help at all is a big question.

If your friend is that concerned about security (and who wouldn't be in Windows with all the media hype about virus/hacker scares) then point her towards linux, preferably Ubuntu for all online stuff and perhaps for data too. I tend use a dual-boot with Windows as it helped me move over to linux much less stressfully but i tend to keep my data on Windows which doesn't have access to the network ;)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask Chakib for more information if necessary.

To post a message you must log in.