Quoting: Cyba.CowboySorry, maybe I wasn't clear.

This is after my manufacturer logo and before I would normally input my disk encryption passphrase, prior to the operating system loading.

At this point, your kernel is already booting. Try an older kernel, new kernels can do strange things sometimes, so it is still a valid check assuming it's not hardware. Otherwise, the other posters options may help

Quoting: Cyba.Cowboyerror: unexpectedly disconnected from boot status demon

Not sure that I can contribute anything useful to resolving the original problem. I have generally avoided drive encryption exactly because of the potential for problems like this.

Quoting: whizseIt would be interesting to run some SMART checks on the drive and see if you can unlock and mount it from a live USB. Not really sure what tools would be best for that on Pop_OS?

When I had boot issues with my Pop!_OS installation, I was able to use my MintStick (Linux Mint live USB) to troubleshoot and fix the problem. The Mint Team always includes a number of very useful tools for troubleshooting problems on their live USB. In this case, perhaps Disks or GParted might help where SMART data is concerned?

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you all - I've been pretty sick and I'm in the midst of changing jobs.

Quoting: CaldathrasI have generally avoided drive encryption exactly because of the potential for problems like this.

I'm considering doing this in the future, because it just causes too many headaches when something goes pear-shaped... My understanding is that for most "mainstream" distros, the default encryption used isn't all that strong, anyway.


Well, I've had a partial win - using this solution, I was able to decrypt my storage drive from a "live" session... But I can't seem to mount the storage drive using this command (as per the 'Ask Ubuntu' answer ):
udisksctl mount -b /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root

If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's because I'm running Pop!_OS and not Ubuntu; but even when I tried "pop" and "popos", I was given the following errors:
Error looking up object for device /dev/mapper/pop--vg-root
Error looking up object for device /dev/mapper/popos--vg-root

Any ideas what I should use instead of "ubuntu"?

I think that if I can mount the drive from within the "live" session, manually backup the data and then do a "clean" install, I can work around this problem... It's not the perfect solution by any stretch of the imagination, but one which keeps my data safe.

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyIf I had to take a guess, I'd say it's because I'm running Pop!_OS and not Ubuntu; but even when I tried "pop" and "popos", I was given the following errors:

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyAny ideas what I should use instead of "ubuntu"?

I don't use it myself, but just a quick thought: Since Pop!_OS has an underscore in its name, have you tried using "pop_os"?

Last edited by Pengling on 27 October 2024 at 11:31 pm UTC

Um, why mess around with udisksctl in this case?

Optionally switch to root:
$ sudo su -

If you skip above, just append sudo to the following.

Start by listing your partitions:

Note: This will work fine on bash, but zsh may throw a no matches found if one of those are missing, in that case just remove the missing one. For example: $ fdisk -l /dev/sd*

$ fdisk -l /dev/{hd*,sd*,nvm*}

This will show partitions from all regular drives, now read through it until you find your drive (See disk model). Under that you'll see a list of partitions, for example it might read "/dev/sda3"

There will probably be multiple partitions on your boot drive, some listed as "EFI System" and such. Try the largest partition first that says "Linux filesystem" or "unknown" (Unknown can occur in some LUKS setups, and does not indicate a problem in that case).

The largest one may be /dev/sda3 for example. Let's try to unlock it:

$ cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda3 data3

Let's mount it:
$ mkdir /mnt/data3
$ mount -t auto /dev/mapper/data3 /mnt/data3

If successful you should now see your data in /mnt/data:

$ ls /mnt/data3

On most configurations the largest partition is probably your home directory. Repeat the process for other smaller partitions if they exist, replacing "3" with the partition number, for example to mount an encrypted /dev/sda2:

$ cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 data2
$ mkdir /mnt/data2
$ mount -t auto /dev/mapper/data2 /mnt/data2

This will likely be your filesystem root ( / ) directory. You can swap and change then numbers or devices as needed, the process is the same.

When done, for each one just do:
$ umount /mnt/data2
$ cryptsetup luksClose data2

While swapping numbers as needed. :-)

Also, just to be clear, you can run a SMART health check on the drive without unlocking or mounting it.

Something like GNOME Disks, as suggested previously by Caldathras, works for for a traditional drive (mechanical or SSD). For NVMe you probably need a cli tool like "nvme" or "smartctl".

Quoting: BlackBloodRumStart by listing your partitions:

Note: This will work fine on bash, but zsh may throw a no matches found if one of those are missing, in that case just remove the missing one. For example: $ fdisk -l /dev/sd*

$ fdisk -l /dev/{hd*,sd*,nvm*}

This will show partitions from all regular drives, now read through it until you find your drive (See disk model). Under that you'll see a list of partitions, for example it might read "/dev/sda3"

There will probably be multiple partitions on your boot drive, some listed as "EFI System" and such. Try the largest partition first that says "Linux filesystem" or "unknown" (Unknown can occur in some LUKS setups, and does not indicate a problem in that case).

The largest one may be /dev/sda3 for example. Let's try to unlock it:

$ cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda3 data3

Let's mount it:
$ mkdir /mnt/data3
$ mount -t auto /dev/mapper/data3 /mnt/data3

It worked all the way up until this point...

When I entered:
mount -t auto /dev/mapper/data3 /mnt/data3

I was told:
mount: /mnt/data3: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'.

Oh, LVM, how exotic!

Joking aside. That's actually really good news! It means your LUKS encryption header is intact and the data can be decrypted.

Follow the instructions I gave above up to the point of mount. We just need to mount it slightly differently. The logical volumes *should* be automatically picked up. So I'll explain that way first.

This time after creating /mnt/data3, do this:

$ lvdisplay

This should output the logical volume(s), each one with its own LV Path, something like "/dev/data/root" for example.

To mount, simply use the path shown next to "LV Path". For example if it is "/dev/data/root":
$ mount /dev/data/root /mnt/data3

This should mount. Now check it:
$ ls /mnt/data3

Hopefully this gets you to your files. This should be all that is needed on a healthy setup.

Last edited by BlackBloodRum on 31 October 2024 at 7:12 pm UTC

It tells me the mount point does not exist:
root@pop-os:/home/pop-os# lvdisplay
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Path                /dev/data/root
  LV Name                root
  VG Name                data
  LV UUID                PFMI6C-AhIh-lSgl-4CUa-2nbc-0Qok-9mFwYL
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time pop-os, 2024-08-16 09:22:16 +0000
  LV Status              available
  # open                 0
  LV Size                <944.85 GiB
  Current LE             241881
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           252:1
  
root@pop-os:/home/pop-os# mount /dev/data/root /mnt/data3
mount: /mnt/data3: mount point does not exist.
root@pop-os:/home/pop-os# mount /dev/data/root /mnt/data
mount: /mnt/data: mount point does not exist.

Did you create the directory /mnt/data3?

$ mkdir /mnt/data
$ mount /dev/data/root /mnt/data

This should get that mounted.