I've read through everything here, but have a couple questions

[devilishj]

NOTES...
No password, only the self encryption...
My 3tb WD MyBook... power crapped... I removed from the case and put into a new basic case...
I DID NOT plug it into Windows after reading on here.
I made a bootable USB with Ubuntu, and after plugged in the new enclosure and it did show up as "sdd"
Tomorrow I have a new 10TB HDD as well as a basic case to put it in (never buying another externall HD in a case after this), assuming this will be found as "sde"

I see some on here are using ddrescue then decrypting... some creating the image file directly from reallymine....

I get the command $ reallymine decrypt /dev/sdd decrypted.img but being as I only have Ubuntu on a USB, I feel I need to specify to decrypt to sde??? totallt unsure what to do with the image file that is created?

Or is it better to ddrescue to sde then decrypt the image also to sde? this needs to be readable from Windows when all is said and done and I really dont want to do anything that will make it harder.

I am 100% unfamiliar with linux commands...

Any and all help would be beyond appreciated!!!

[themaddoctor]

If you want a drive that Windows can read, then use ddrescue to copy decrypted.img onto a new 3TB disk.
Use a command like
ddrescue decrypted.img /dev/sdX
where X is the letter for the new disk.

I don't know how to do it directly from reallymine.

[devilishj]

thanks @themaddoctor ... does it have to be another 3TB disk or can it be larger? seems like a dumb question after asking....

My thought process now is remove the very few files I have on a 5TB external (which after this mess I am planning to trash anyways) I am going to reinstall Ubuntu onto that rather than my USB and partition 4TB as persistent storage for Ubuntu...
I will then download and run $ reallymine decrypt /dev/sdX decrypted.img without the need to specify where it is written...

Then I will use ddrescue decrypted.img /dev/sdX with X being my new blank 10 TB hard drive....

[themaddoctor]

I think you can use a larger disk.
Anything on that disk will be destroyed in the process.
Windows might complain about unallocated space. I don't use Windows, but I wouldn't be surprised by this.

[devilishj]

UPDATE...
I have it running now...
After a long day of trying to get Ubuntu working properly on an External drive... and trying many ways to get reallymine installed through terminal, then through go... what I ended up doing was...
Running Ubuntu through USB (sda), attaching bad WD (sdb), and reformatted a 5TB to EXF4(Or something like that... sdc)
I opened disks, mounted sdc and looked where it was mounted /media/ubuntu/storage
In terminal changed cd to /downloads...
Sudo. ./reallymine-linux-amd64 decrypt /dev/sdb /media/ubuntu/storage/decrypted.img

I'll update in a couple days

[devilishj]

If you want a drive that Windows can read, then use ddrescue to copy decrypted.img onto a new 3TB disk. Use a command like ddrescue decrypted.img /dev/sdX where X is the letter for the new disk.

I don't know how to do it directly from reallymine.
@themaddoctor I am now at around 25% through the decryption process and have a proactive question about format types... from what I've read, I formatted the target drive for the decryptes.img to ext4.... the original hdd was NTFS.... Hope I didn't make a mistake already!!! When I run ddrescue should I format the target drive to NTFS or ext4.... for windows to recognize it. Am I creating problems with the different formats? Should I restart the process using all NTFS?

[themaddoctor]

If the decrypted image is a file, then it doesn't matter what filesystem it sits in. Later, you will have to copy it to a disk with the command I mentioned above:
ddrescue decrypted.img /dev/sdX

Windows can't read images that are files; it can only read disks. Hope that makes sense.