On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 12:35:56PM -0300, Crystal Kolipe wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 03:02:29PM +0000, Anon Loli wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 11:51:53AM -0300, Crystal Kolipe wrote:
> > > On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 01:02:04PM +0000, Anon Loli wrote:
> > > > Hello list
> > > > So I was trying to resolve the problem that I just submitted with the
> > > > Installer, and I was putting a fresh install75 on my USB, the problem 
> > > > is that
> > > > last DD/flash my USB was on sd2, and in meanwhile I attached my VERY 
> > > > IMPORTANT
> > > > external drive to my computer which became sd2 with crypto volume 
> > > > attached as
> > > > sd3, so it was mounted.
> > > 
> > > There is a difference between the crypto volume being _attached_ and a
> > > partition on it being _mounted_.
> > > 
> > > In your case the crypto volume contained within sd2 was attached as sd3.
> > > 
> > > But quite possibly none of the partitions on sd3 was mounted on /mnt.
> > > 
> > > Now you have overwritten the beginning of sd2, which is where the 
> > > encryption
> > > keys are stored.
> > > 
> > > But since it was hopefully already attached a copy of these keys will be 
> > > in
> > > RAM, despite the fact that you have trashed the on-disk copy.
> > > 
> > > So don't reset the machine now, because that copy would be lost.
> > > 
> > > What happens if you do:
> > > 
> > > # mount -oro /dev/sd3X /mnt
> > > 
> > > Replacing X with the partition that you actually had on the external disk,
> > > (probably a or d).
> > > 
> > > Are you able to see anything that was on the disk?
> > > 
> > > If so, let us know and don't do anything else that might crash the 
> > > machine.
> > > 
> > 
> > I sent a reply with some more info, do you still want me to proceed with
> > `mount -oro`?
> 
> No, the partition is already mounted.
> 
> I'm assuming that you only had this one partition on the encrypted volume sd3,
> and that it started at or near the beginning of the disk.  In the unlikely
> event that you had multiple partitions on it, the second and subsequent ones
> might still be mountable and intact.
> 
> In the more likely case that it was one large partition at the beginning, then
> the first ~70 Mb of sd3 have also been lost, because that data was backed by
> the first ~70 Mb of sd2 that you overwrote.
> 
> The one glimmer of hope that you have is that you are almost certainly still
> reading the data on the rest of sd3, (past the first ~70 Mb), correctly
> decrypted, because the key is in RAM, (but overwritten on the disk).
> 
> If the data was genuinely valuable as you describe, you might want to attach
> a new storage volume that is at least as big as sd3, and write an image of sd3
> to that volume whilst you still can, (because once you reset the machine or
> detach the sd3 volume the key will be lost).
> 
> In theory most of your data would be recoverable from that image, but it would
> require a lot of work and knowledge of ffs filesystem layout.
> 
> If you do make an image of the disk, you could try searching it for ASCII
> strings and if you found any then it would confirm that the encrypted data was
> correctly decrypted at the time of copying.
> 
> Oh, and in the future it's much easier to make backups than to go through this
> nightmare of data recovery.

So what you're saying is that I need a new disk that's at least the size of the
overwritten SSD, and then make an image of sd3 and copy it over to the new
disk?
I don't think that I have as you said enough knowledge about FFS...

I can use the other computer that has enough storage space, but I can't install
OpenBSD well, it's the other recent mail with "Installer" in name, if we solve
that, then I can install OpenBSD on there and gain access to a drive where I
can then copy over the image of sd3 over ssh then..

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