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I am so excited that I got a new personal laptop, and for the first time in my life it didn't bring Windows preinstalled (it's the new Dell XPS 13, with Ubuntu 16.04 preconfigured).

As I turned it on, I could just set the basic settings (language, locales, etc.) and I was able to encrypt my home folder, but I remember from past installations (and that's how I currently have it in my old computer) that there was a chance of encrypting the whole disk (I think in the partitioning step).

I've been reading here at SO and in Internet and I think it is not possible to do something like "reinstalling the whole Ubuntu" from factory without having to boot it from a USB, so here is my question:

Is there a way to encrypt the whole disk once Ubuntu has been installed? Is there a workaround? Or do I have to get an image, boot it from a USB and perform as usual.

Thank you very much in advance!

vabada
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  • Have you tried contacting the Dell tech support? You should be able to factory reset from a boot menu. However, I doubt this reset will be to the install point where you can enable encryption. – Greg Weber Mar 07 '17 at 19:25

2 Answers2

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The short answer to your question is no, you can't encrypt the entire disk after Ubuntu has been installed.

There ARE ways to do what you want.... for example encrypting it using Trucrypt, but the easiest and cleanest way to go is to just do a clean install.

You could look at the following thread but after reading it you may agree that doing a clean re-install is the best way to accomplish what you want. Enable disk encryption after installation

Community
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jones0610
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If you really want to reinstall everything. Create a Live USB, Boot from it and select OEM installation. Choose to encrypt the entire drive.

Caution: this will format the entire disk

akxer
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