Ubuntu on Lenovo x61s - Help needed

[Peter]

I did check that  it rejected a bad password and accepted the good 
password. I have tried looking at the disk when mounted on a usb port on 
another Ubuntu laptop. Again a good password was  accepted and a bad 
password clearly rejected. I also tried the inbuilt BIOS disk check 
program on the original laptop. The disk failed with and the system 
error message was to the effect i needed to get help.

I have now installed Ubuntu on a replacement disk and am slowly 
recovering the lost data. Much of exists on paper so I have actually 
lost very little data. (Something to be said for paper records)

  I checked the disk which had the latest backups on and it too is dead. 
I was unfortunate to have had two disks die in the same period

I always check backups when completed to see that I can read the files. 
I create backups copying the home directory to an appropriately named 
directory on the backup disks which means the backup can be read on any 
computer via a usb link.

Thank you all  for your help and suggestions.

Regards
Peter Goggin

On 07/09/15 15:06, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Mon, 2015-09-07 at 14:48 +1000, Peter wrote:
>> The disk was visible and when selected asked fot the encryption
>> password. This was accepted and the response was the disk does not have
>> a recognisable file system.
> Is there some reason why you do not answer questions that are asked of
> you?
>
> I asked you to attempt to mount the disk using a known incorrect
> password and to tell us what happens.
>
> This will tell us whether the password really is being "accepted" or
> not.
>
> Please do this and tell us what happens.
>
> If the result is the same with a BAD password as with a
> thought-to-be-GOOD password, then my first suspicion would be that you
> are using the wrong password. If, however, you get a clear error message
> with a BAD password, i.e. a message saying that the password is bad,
> then the thought-to-be-GOOD password probably is actually good, and the
> data on the encrypted partition is probably lost.
>
> Of course, if your thought-to-be-GOOD password is actually BAD, then the
> data on the disk is just as lost :-(
>
> Either way this whole sorry saga should be a salutary lesson to all of
> us about having good, current, tested backups...
>
> Regards, K.
>
>