# Move GELI encrypted disk to different computer



## user222 (Feb 1, 2017)

I have a geli encrypted USB drive. 

I decided to try moving this disk to a different FreeBSD host as a disaster recovery scenario.

When I connect this USB drive to a different FreeBSD host, the USB drive is recognized with `usbconfig`, but there is no drive that shows up under `/dev`. Nothing.

When I attach this same disk to Debian or macOS, I can see the drive. Hmm?

Any suggesstions? Thanks.


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## k.jacker (Feb 1, 2017)

I'm not familiar with GELI, but as far as I know at least the partitioning scheme doesn't show up before the drive is decrypted in FreeBSD.


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## chrbr (Feb 1, 2017)

The problem should not be related to GELI. I have such a drive which shows up uder FreeBSD when I power it up using a USB hub and connect the hub to the PC. Now the drive has GELI enycrpted partitions, before it has been plain UFS. The behaviour has not changed. Some timings can be tweaked, but I can live with the situation.


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## wolffnx (Feb 1, 2017)

user222 said:


> I have a geli encrypted USB drive.
> 
> I decided to try moving this disk to a different FreeBSD host as a disaster recovery scenario.
> 
> ...



the only experience i have was move a sata hard disk encrypted with geli with no problem
what do you see when you connect and run `dmesg` ?
in theory you have to see some drive


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## user222 (Feb 8, 2017)

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to have to write this off as weirdness with vmware fusion.

I reattached these disks to the same server no problem, after a fresh install of FreeBSD. When I was making a go at installing FreeNAS it recognized the disks as well. Only problem was with FreeBSD running as a guest under vmware fusion.


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## SirDice (Feb 8, 2017)

user222 said:


> Only problem was with FreeBSD running as a guest under vmware fusion.


This does require USB pass-through to work. I'm not sure what the status is for that on VMWare, it's a bit dodgy on VirtualBox. 

Keep in mind that all a VM sees is virtual hardware or whatever is passed on through the VM layer. If you don't enable pass-through the host is the only system that actually sees a USB device.


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