HELP Booting a Virtualbox Guest from a hard drive

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Linux hosts.
taha_mct
Posts: 10
Joined: 30. Aug 2021, 08:25

Re: HELP Booting a Virtualbox Guest from a hard drive

Post by taha_mct »

Well, the story behind it is a bit complicated. I have a Western Drive my passport external hard drive and I had the content on it encrypted. Sadly, I forgot the encryption key and not matter how hard I tried, I didn't manage to guess the password. On an old computer of mine, I had it set so that it automatically, opens the hard drive without needing to enter the password. That's why I had to log in as this specific user on this Win 10 instance. I already had access to the Windows contents but my goal was to re-gain access to my external hard drive. So actually, I successfully, managed to boot up windows 10 on it and log in to it but after plugging in the external hard drive, I found out that it did not auto open and it prompted me to enter the password. So I'm really sad in that regard that I can't get it open.
The thing is that, this external hard drive has a lot of vulnerabilities and the encryption can get circumvented by a person with the know how. I got in contact with a person in Kuwait and they claimed that they can open it up for the price of 2000$.
So I'm really sad as I did not manage to open my files on it. This was my hail-Mary attempt at it which failed. I guess that maybe tinkering with the VM date might lead to somewhere, but it also could be the case that the data required to auto-open it is totally not stored on it at all and it was stored on another part of the hardware (But I have no clue where).
That's the backstory behind all this.
taha_mct
Posts: 10
Joined: 30. Aug 2021, 08:25

Re: HELP Booting a Virtualbox Guest from a hard drive

Post by taha_mct »

So for anyone in the future wanting to something similar, the issue was fixed by booting from a Win 10 iso file and going to Repair -> advanced options -> Command prompt and entering the following commands:

Code: Select all

BOOTREC /FIXMBR
BOOTREC /RebuildBcd
and after rebooting, Windows updated/installed/downloaded some drivers and it booted up.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: HELP Booting a Virtualbox Guest from a hard drive

Post by mpack »

taha_mct wrote: I got in contact with a person in Kuwait and they claimed that they can open it up for the price of 2000$.
Hmm. I would be wary of a scam, and I wouldn't pay more than 10% up front.
taha_mct
Posts: 10
Joined: 30. Aug 2021, 08:25

Re: HELP Booting a Virtualbox Guest from a hard drive

Post by taha_mct »

Yeah, trust is a big factor here. Also more than that is the absurd pricing. I heavily doubt if the guy really is a scammer but I think that the price is unjustifiable.
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