[FDE] CompuSec Worst-Case Scenario Prep

[Josh H]

 Hi,

I just installed a copy of CompuSec free on my notebook (running WinXP Pro),
and encrypted the hard drive. While trying to look up information on turning
off the internal speaker beep at boot, I found several threads on their
yahoogroups discussing irrecoverable loss due to corruption (particularly
due to errors or crashes during the encryption/decryption process). The only
solution I seem to locate for those situations is to slave the hard drive in
a different machine with CompuSec installed and hope that you can still
decrypt the data.

I do not believe that in a worst-case scenario that that solution would be
an option for me, as I am dealing with a notebook hard drive, not standard
IDE and the only converters I have found thus far are for USB externals
(which can not be decrypted because they were initially encrypted with the
hard drive key and not the removable media key).

So, my question is this:

What do I need to do to prepare for, prevent, and recover from the
worst-case scenario of an OS crash corrupting an essential piece of
the MBR (or some other critical area) and preventing me from booting in or
decrypting my data? (Besides backups and images. We all know how important
they are, but I'm looking for *recovery* since I don't have the resources to
make a full image every night)

Thank you all for your time.

-- Josh
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