Yesterday, I decided to encrypt my Toshiba Satellite C650D laptop with TrueCrypt – I opted for Full System Drive encryption, which involves TrueCrypt adding its own bootloader. After answering the usual questions from the setup wizard, it prompted me to reboot to test the settings. After Windows restarted, I was prompted to enter the password I had specified earlier. The only problem was, when I started typing, nothing happened – I also couldn’t use ESC to bypass the password prompt, or CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot. My only option was to power off. When I turned the laptop back on, though, I was able to enter the password without issue.
After the encryption process finished, I rebooted the laptop again, only to find that keyboard input still wasn’t working when I needed to enter the bootloader password. Again, though, after powering it off and back on everything worked fine. On a hunch, I shut down the laptop completely, then turned it back on, and was able to enter the password without issue.
As it turns out, if you have Toshiba’s ‘Fastboot’ feature enabled in BIOS (allows for < 1 second from power button to bootloader, bypassing the BIOS splash screen and, apparently, some hardware initialization steps), TrueCrypt won’t recognize your internal keyboard (unfortunately, I didn’t have a USB keyboard handy to see if that would work) – but only on a reboot. From a cold boot, the keyboard is apparently initialized differently and works fine.
TL;DR Version: If you use TrueCrypt to encrypt your System Drive and have Toshiba Laptop, don’t use the Fastboot option in BIOS or you will not be able to enter your bootloader password when you reboot and will be force to cold boot every time.
