How to re-use encrypted volume

[Josef Wolf]

On Sat, Jan 09, 2010 at 08:03:50PM +0000, user1 wrote:
> >> So how am I supposed to re-use an existing encrypted volume?
> 
> I would copy the decrypted content onto an external harddisk, probably 
> first save it all into a tar.gz file to do it faster.

While this is possible, it is the least desirable way to do it, IMHO.
There at least two reasons why this is bad:

1. pointless copying takes lots of time.
2. chances are, that data is encrypted for a reason. maybe you don't want
   it store somewhere unencrypted.

With unencrypted partitions, you can simply assign a mount-point without
formatting in the installer and you get the partition mounted with
the old data.

For encrypted partitions, there should also be a way to re-use the
partition without formatting (you have to supply the passphrase, of course)