~sstahlman/

Unfortunately, not easily. The VM I had my tools i...

2012-05-23T06:16:34.257-06:00

Unfortunately, not easily. The VM I had my tools in got corrupted, and I haven't had the time to set it all back up again. If you read through the thread on Marcan's blog, though, you should be able to get to where you can do it. Sorry I can't be more help right now. ;(

Seth, there must be locked options in my bios, for...

2012-05-23T05:43:20.484-06:00

Seth, there must be locked options in my bios, for exapmple the Aspire One D150 has an internal mini-PCIe Port which is unusable.
On the other hand I had some detection issues with different mini-PCIe WLAN adapters.
Can you check out what's locked?
The link to the latest bios v1.13 is http://bit.ly/JcGlSo

You must have missed that bit in my post for the c...

2012-05-23T05:32:43.781-06:00

You must have missed that bit in my post for the crisis bit? :) Anyway, glad you got it solved, and thanks for updating status here, in case others run into the same issue. After all, the only machine I know works for sure is mine! ;)

solved, like a lot of other people I needed to fin...

2012-05-23T05:12:36.231-06:00

solved, like a lot of other people I needed to find out the correct insyde recovery filename ... found help at mdl : ) so I cam verify this 'hack' breaks the FADT (APCI) on my aspire one d150.

No idea; ask tech support (which I'm not). Th...

2012-05-23T00:55:39.302-06:00

No idea; ask tech support (which I'm not). This post isn't about flashing, and if you're not using the exact same machine/specs, then you can't expect it to work the same.

Use google, or call your vendor, and find out what you need, if you've flashed your bios.

Help, crysis recovery impossible and flashit shows...

2012-05-22T19:18:15.574-06:00

Help, crysis recovery impossible and flashit shows Error: FADT not found!
How can the modifications be undone?

Thanks a lot, it solved also a mess after win 7 sp...

2012-02-20T18:15:10.403-07:00

Thanks a lot, it solved also a mess after win 7 sp 1 upgrade / update.

More details below, in hope to help others.

System : dual boot windows 7 64bit / OpenSUSE 12.1,
Gigabyte P55-UD4 mobo, latest (F9) Bios, AHCI enabled.
Grub installed on a dedicated (sda3) primary partition (not on the MBR) which was active.
For the sp1 upgrade I used diskpart to make the windows boot partition (sda1) active.
The upgrade went smoothly, reboot OK.

Then a windows update. After the update, the system was in deep halt
(I had to wake it up with the Power On button). It looked finished, waiting for reboot.
Then the boot stopped at stage 23.
I had to disconnect the hard drive to be able to go into the BIOS, and change to IDE. OK.

The MBR was bit for bit the same as before, thus it looks like windows changed something in the bios.
(Maybe flashing the bios again would do also; didn't try).
Anyway, altering the MBR at offsets 0x1c3 and 0x1c4 from 11 and 44 to FE and FF respectively solved my problem, as in the previous comment.
No format / reinstall needed, again thanks a lot !

From the link you posted, you've got "Ser...

2012-02-12T16:08:24.889-07:00

From the link you posted, you've got "Serial ATA AHCI BIOS, Version iSrc 1.20_E.0024 12212009". I only looked at the 4mb .fd, (there's 1mb and 2mb in the link, as well). From what I remember, that newer version should work, but if it bombs, you'll get an 'error 23' on your screen. I wouldn't run a laptop without encryption, personally, so I'd definitely do it with your setup, were it me. However, I'm a stranger on the Internet, and you can bork your hardware. I'd suggest, at the very least, having a bootable USB flash drive (with Hiren's or similar) and a USB <-> SATA external connector, so if you end up in trouble, you can manually edit the partition table. Or, if you have access to a desktop system with SATA... and are comfortable removing your laptop drive, you could do that. If this sort of stuff makes you uncomfortable, probably best not to mess with it.

Seth, Thanks for your response again. I have a l...

2012-02-12T13:05:38.864-07:00

Seth,

Thanks for your response again.

I have a look into your HP 'safer fixed' BIOS post. How do I know which version AHCI module I have?
Also, I have seen your don't panic section but my BIOS doesnt not allow me to change IDE mode (it is very basic). Any suggestion how to proceed? See link below for the latest F.37 BIOS from HP site.

Regards

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-95792-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&os=4063&product=4106384&sw_lang=&ts=true#thankyou

HP had a 'safer' 'fixed' BIOS (see...

2012-02-10T14:09:57.763-07:00

HP had a 'safer' 'fixed' BIOS (see my other post) that fixed a hang, but introduced other bugs. With a new enough version, you're probably okay. Without tearing apart your BIOS, I can't give you a proper answer (and I can't do that without finding the VM I set up with all the tools to play with this...) but realize it's not the BIOS but the AHCI module in the BIOS you need the version number of. And, also, if you read my Don't Panic section, you can make an informed decision about whether you want to try it. Back up all your data, of course, and verify you can actually change to IDE mode in your BIOS... if so, ... it's likely better to have an encrypted drive than not. ;-)

Seth, Thank you very much for your response. I do...

2012-02-10T07:07:18.196-07:00

Seth,

Thank you very much for your response. I do not have another machine so is too risky for me to try. However, HP have all BIOS version in their webpage. I have gone through all change logs for all bios revision but I couldnt find anything relates with this issue. I just wonder if this is already fixed or not? Any clever ideas to know it without trying?
Regards

Truecrypt isn't the problem, the BIOS is (was?...

2012-02-09T14:34:54.940-07:00

Truecrypt isn't the problem, the BIOS is (was?). Try installing, and if it hangs, fix with another system... or let everyone know if it's fixed. (I don't have the time to dig it up and see.)

I have an hp-g62 laptop with BIOS insydeh2o rev 3....

2012-02-09T14:15:58.875-07:00

I have an hp-g62 laptop with BIOS insydeh2o rev 3.5 F.37. Is safe to use truecrypt? Has insyde already patch this bug? regards

Fuck Insyde !

2012-01-13T16:09:46.817-07:00

Fuck Insyde !

Conclusion: Don't buy laptops with Insyde BIOS...

2011-11-25T01:34:56.030-07:00

Conclusion: Don't buy laptops with Insyde BIOS systems if you care about the safety of your system.

I am the owner of the HP Envy 14 that posted above. For 13 days I have made no progress on this error. Today I have given up, after finding that not only is Sector 2048 is apparently not where the first Windows partition starts on an HP, but also that I can't decrypt my hard disk from another computer.

The next computer I buy, I'll be checking the BIOS system to see if it's TrueCrypt friendly. Until then, I give up.

Just a guess, but if you're trying to run a GU...

2011-11-12T20:20:37.472-07:00

Just a guess, but if you're trying to run a GUI program from a commandline, it'll fail. Also, if you're in safemode where you can run GUI programs (and just have a cmd spawned) you might get that message if you're running x64 Windows (since HxD is 32bit...). Just guessing here, what your problem is.

Here's a link with other programs you can try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_editor

And also, you could download Hiren's Boot Disc or similar, if you need a way of booting a 32bit OS to fix things. ;-)

I have this issue on an HP Envy 14. I tried runnin...

2011-11-12T19:23:58.361-07:00

I have this issue on an HP Envy 14. I tried running HxD from a USB in safe mode (from command prompt), but I got the error message 'The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present'. Is there anything I can do about this, or is there another program that will work?

It's possible there was an update... or that t...

2011-07-20T16:01:48.727-06:00

It's possible there was an update... or that the system that's not crashing is in IDE mode (did you remember to look? :-) ) or that you're not looking at the right byte. OR that whatever you encrypted the drive with changed what it's putting there. Or that it's a valid 'sector per track' value: try making it 0xFF for fun and profit. :-)

Of course, if Insyde did get around to fixing it, it'll remove a headache for a lot of folk.

Hi, Thank you for your reply, I am the Anonymous ...

2011-07-20T06:28:19.834-06:00

Hi,

Thank you for your reply, I am the Anonymous from above ;)
Today I wanted to test your method with an old hard drive in my new laptop with Insyde BIOS V1.25. It is an Acer 4820TG. The same model with an older BIOS version has crashed before in the way you describd it after TrueCrypt encryption.

I encrypted the hard drive, rebooted and didn't see a crash but was able to boot normally. I was really confused so I took the hard drive and hooked it up to another laptop via adapter.
I ran HxD and checked offset 25 (I am not familiar with Hex so I started counting from 0 to 25) in sector 2048. It is not 0. The drives weren't labeled and I checked ard drive 1 under physical drives.

Do you have an explanation for this? Could it be that there was an update after all!

Thank you in advance!

No, you can run the system SATA; just have it set ...

2011-06-30T14:22:22.638-06:00

No, you can run the system SATA; just have it set up as IDE until you make sure you've properly 0'd byte at offset 0x19.

Thanks for the description. But did I get it right...

2011-06-30T14:15:18.544-06:00

Thanks for the description. But did I get it right that this fix requires the TrueCrypt encrypted system to run in IDE mode?

Very nice work! I'm the author of the post re...

2011-06-24T12:57:05.241-06:00

Very nice work! I'm the author of the post re: the Toshiba not booting due to Truecrypt and AHCI. It's nice to know the underlying reason why that caused the BIOS to choke.

Kudos on the thorough investigation. :-)

-AMB

You're following me correctly, I think. What ...

2011-04-07T11:41:51.508-06:00

You're following me correctly, I think.

What I would recommend is having a boot disc handy, such as UBCD or Hiren's and testing it first; ie, make sure you can boot happily off it: see the 'Don't Panic' section above. ;-)

You won't need to decrypt the disk; you just need to be able to boot to change those bytes, which you can after you change your BIOS to use IDE mode (and then change back to SATA/AHCI to allow Windows to boot properly.).

If you're really worried about it --- you can snag a USB <-> SATA adapter cable from Newegg, and use that on any computer with USB with your laptop hdd...

One other issue you should know, though; if you're using a 64bit OS, TrueCrypt doesn't have signed drivers (ie, trying to use the W7 recovery console to decrypt is an exercise in frustration).

If you're not comfortable yanking your hard drive, and TrueCrypt doesn't let you change it before the reboot (I can't remember offhand) then you might want to pass on this...

I'd suggest the 'safe' way would be to boot a disc with TrueCrypt on it, with the BIOS already set to IDE (XP/Vista/W7 will BSoD, if it was set with SATA) and encrypt the drive. Change the appropriate MBR location (make sure you've got a hex editor on your disc), reboot, set BIOS back to SATA, boot into encrypted disc happily. :-)

(And badger Insyde to update their blasted modules!)

Wow. I have no idea how I finally stumbled onto th...

2011-04-07T06:39:58.338-06:00

Wow. I have no idea how I finally stumbled onto this blog, but thank you so much for publishing this.

However I'm just trying to make sure that I follow you correctly here.

Are you saying that, following a full disk encryption (say with truecrypt) on a machine with the insyde h20 bios, it would be a good idea to change this byte on the 1st hard disk?

The reason being that the bios will 'hang' when reading this byte and allow the boot process to continue?

As it stands I have had to hold off on encrypting my harddrive because I am 100% convinced that the machine will not be able to boot after encryption is complete. (Acer aspire 1830T with Insyde h20 v 1.20)

This would be such a simple fix that I'm excited to try it, but I have no spare laptop to haul the disk out to get it unencrypted if I've understood you incorrectly!

Nothing, beyond setting and leaving the debug jump...

2011-03-09T16:02:39.908-07:00

Nothing, beyond setting and leaving the debug jumper enabled, which might be required; I didn't think to try without it.

Also, I think the sites saying to disable the onboard video is for WHS; you need to disable WHS' driver, if you want to use the H340 as a desktop system and boot up with keyboard and video.

For my part, I just dropped the card in, and initially (before getting it booting off USB) was treated to WHS's restore, using the Zotac.

Do note, though, I had to take the card out before closing everything back up, because it's 'too big' to stay in. Unless you fancy leaving the case open, this is something to consider.