How to get back my Encrypted files?

[ardawan]

Hi,

I have an external hard drive which has 2 partitions.

• #1 80GB exFAT empty (ready to install Debian on)
  #2 920GB HFS Backup files (All my backup files)

I wanted to install Debian on the #1 partition. but I chose encrypted LVM for entire disk(my mistake ) and I'm not able to access to my backup files on my Mac.

My question is how can I bring my files back to the normal situation that I can get my files back?

here is what I did:

• 1.boot Debian USB installer to install
  2.continued until disk partitioning
  3.I chose "use entire disk and set up encrypted LVM"
  4.middle of the progress I realize I don't have to do this and its wrong
  5.i canceled
  6.then asked me for an encryption password
  7.i entered
  8.and continue to the partition section to check whether I can redo!
  9.I saw my both external hard drive partitions encrypted and changed to Linux FileSystem.
  10.reboot and boot my MacOS and I saw I can't access to my partition #2(backup files) due to LinuxFileSystem

[dilberts_left_nut]

Probably gone, depending on how far the crypt overwrite got, but you could try testdisk to see if it can see / restore anything remaining of your HFS partition.

No idea about how HFS works or even if testdisk can work with it, maybe better knowledge about that on a mac forum.

[alan stone]

I have an external hard drive which has 2 partitions.

• #1 80GB exFAT empty (ready to install Debian on)
  #2 920GB HFS Backup files (All my backup files)

...
I'm not able to access to my backup files on my Mac.

I'm wondering: where are the original files?

On the Mac's hard drive, or on another storage device?

If none of these, what you have/had on the 2nd partition of the
external hard drive is not a backup.

[Mute Ant]

"How to get back my Encrypted files?" If the files were LUKS encrypted before you installed over them, it's bad news, they're gone. A new LUKS header wipes the previous encryption keys. If, on the other hand, the files were in plain-text, they are (mostly) still there. Setting a partition header as LUKS doesn't change the sectors that are already there. Even formatting a partition leaves over 95% of the original data intact. You've lost the folder-and-filename structure but photorec will recover intact files for you.