John the Ripper and partially known password bruteforce

[MysteryMiner]

I have this DiskCryptor 0.9.x encrypted computer that I only partially remember password. I used this password for every day for like 1,5 years and one not so good evening I came back home, entered the password and it was not accepted. Tried various combinations, maybe I missed some letter or wrong case. Nothing. I am pretty sure that the encryption is not malfunctioning or somehow gotten corrupted. It is the password that got some bit flip in my brain. It got not only several bitcoins stored on that computer, but my digital life for almost decade that is locked away - pictures, music, game saves, everything.

I have the password written down after the incident as I remember it. Obviously, it is not the exact correct password. I think that John The Ripper is best software that can do various permutations on a text string given, then feed the output into command line of diskcryptor and depending of diskcryptor returned status repeat with new password or print out correct password. All could be controlled with BAT file.

I need some ideas and general discussion. Maybe someone have better software that can manipulate a password. I have no backups, the setup was super paranoid and secure.

[LoyceV]

I have no backups

I can't help you with your problem, but (to state the obvious) I can recommend to create a backup first: create a disk image (or more than one). The image will still be encrypted, but at least disk failure won't mean losing the data if you ever recover the password.

[MysteryMiner]

Of course I have created disk images and working on them.

A tool that creates wordlist from mangling given passphrase also would be workable. In fact it could be much better since it will be simpler for me to implement in bat file.

[whanau]

I think john the ripper is the right tool also. Have a look at this.

 https://countuponsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/jtr-cheat-sheet.pdf

There are many sites you can download rule sets from.

[Smartprofit]

I have this DiskCryptor 0.9.x encrypted computer that I only partially remember password. I used this password for every day for like 1,5 years and one not so good evening I came back home, entered the password and it was not accepted. Tried various combinations, maybe I missed some letter or wrong case. Nothing. I am pretty sure that the encryption is not malfunctioning or somehow gotten corrupted. It is the password that got some bit flip in my brain. It got not only several bitcoins stored on that computer, but my digital life for almost decade that is locked away - pictures, music, game saves, everything.

I have the password written down after the incident as I remember it. Obviously, it is not the exact correct password. I think that John The Ripper is best software that can do various permutations on a text string given, then feed the output into command line of diskcryptor and depending of diskcryptor returned status repeat with new password or print out correct password. All could be controlled with BAT file.

I need some ideas and general discussion. Maybe someone have better software that can manipulate a password. I have no backups, the setup was super paranoid and secure.

Did you enter your password from memory every day for 1.5 years, that is, 547 times, and then forgot it?  Here we can say unequivocally - you REMEMBER your password. 
And in order to restore it, you will not need any additional software or a password written down after the “incident” occurred.  You need to work with your memory.  For example, completely restore the entire atmosphere of one of those 547 days when you remembered your password well and successfully decrypted your computer. 
Remember the exact time when you started working at the computer, the smells from the kitchen, your thoughts and moods at that moment, visual images - that is, everything that can mentally return you to that time.... 
In neurolinguistic programming these are called "anchors".  By activating the “anchors”, you can quite easily hack your own brain and extract the information you need from it. 
As a last resort, you can resort to the help of an appropriate specialist who knows similar techniques.

[MysteryMiner]

Did you enter your password from memory every day for 1.5 years, that is, 547 times, and then forgot it?  Here we can say unequivocally - you REMEMBER your password.

I probably did not enter it every day, but sometimes it went without entering the password for week, sometimes I entered the password multiple times per day when installing and rebooting. I am pretty confident it was at least 350 times over course of the usage of that computer. That unhappy day I hibernated the computer at morning, went to study, returned home, powered the computer but it refused my password I entered multiple times. That was stressful time in my life - study and exams, relationship issues, and that day I slipped on icy road and slightly hurt my leg (not head!). I entered the password mostly from muscle memory, because it was 28 or more random characters, upper and lower case, numbers and special symbols. As it turns out the brain is unreliable storage medium.

The incident happened 8 years ago. I left the computer as-is and counted the data as unrecoverable. Because I made it to be immune against seizing and decryption attempts by KGB, FBI, CIA and NSA. But now I want to restore the computer as it was because it is in very good physical condition and very great example of that era ( HP Pavilion dv8000) and I have the the disk images to play with and spare hardware to run brute force on.

[ABCbits]

I have this DiskCryptor 0.9.x encrypted computer that I only partially remember password. I used this password for every day for like 1,5 years and one not so good evening I came back home, entered the password and it was not accepted. Tried various combinations, maybe I missed some letter or wrong case. Nothing. I am pretty sure that the encryption is not malfunctioning or somehow gotten corrupted. It is the password that got some bit flip in my brain. It got not only several bitcoins stored on that computer, but my digital life for almost decade that is locked away - pictures, music, game saves, everything.

I have the password written down after the incident as I remember it. Obviously, it is not the exact correct password. I think that John The Ripper is best software that can do various permutations on a text string given, then feed the output into command line of diskcryptor and depending of diskcryptor returned status repeat with new password or print out correct password. All could be controlled with BAT file.

I need some ideas and general discussion. Maybe someone have better software that can manipulate a password. I have no backups, the setup was super paranoid and secure.

Since you said you enter it everyday for 1.5 years, i feel it's far more likely the header got corrupted. By header, i refer to section of the partition which store key needed to perform decryption[1]. Anyway, you might also want to ask for help on DiskCryptor GitHub or forum, since it's less popular than BitLocker or LUKS.

[1] https://diskcryptor.org/volume/

[dsjgjf]

Have you tried using win pe to get the bitcoin file?

[ABCbits]

Have you tried using win pe to get the bitcoin file?

win pe as in Windows Preinstallation Environment? I don't see how it can help OP perform brute-force in order to decrypt the encrypted disk.

[Smartprofit]

Did you enter your password from memory every day for 1.5 years, that is, 547 times, and then forgot it?  Here we can say unequivocally - you REMEMBER your password.

I probably did not enter it every day, but sometimes it went without entering the password for week, sometimes I entered the password multiple times per day when installing and rebooting. I am pretty confident it was at least 350 times over course of the usage of that computer. That unhappy day I hibernated the computer at morning, went to study, returned home, powered the computer but it refused my password I entered multiple times. That was stressful time in my life - study and exams, relationship issues, and that day I slipped on icy road and slightly hurt my leg (not head!). I entered the password mostly from muscle memory, because it was 28 or more random characters, upper and lower case, numbers and special symbols. As it turns out the brain is unreliable storage medium.

The incident happened 8 years ago. I left the computer as-is and counted the data as unrecoverable. Because I made it to be immune against seizing and decryption attempts by KGB, FBI, CIA and NSA. But now I want to restore the computer as it was because it is in very good physical condition and very great example of that era ( HP Pavilion dv8000) and I have the the disk images to play with and spare hardware to run brute force on.

You have a very good memory if you can remember 28 or more random characters... 
You wrote that you relied on muscle memory, but it was damaged after injury?  Perhaps hypnosis will help you? 
An experienced hypnotist can mentally transport you back in time and “give you a verbal command” to enter the correct password.  Your muscle memory may be blocked, but it is not gone, so it is possible that you will be able to decrypt your computer.  And then the hypnotist will bring you out of the altered state and you will change the password to a new one (which you will write down in a paper notebook). 
In general, it seems that crypto enthusiasts very often lose access to their Bitcoin wallets precisely because of their paranoia, due to overly complex passwords that they forget. 
Because the story you told is not the only such case.

[LoyceV]

I entered the password mostly from muscle memory, because it was 28 or more random characters, upper and lower case, numbers and special symbols. As it turns out the brain is unreliable storage medium.

That's how I enter most of my passwords too: I wouldn't be able to write them down, but I can easily enter them on a keyboard. And that brings me to my next question (small chance): have you tried a different keyboard? Or enter it 100 times in a text document, and see where you make common mistakes?

[NotATether]

This is the sort of thing that I'd store in a password manage though. Just saying.

The disk image obviously is not something that should go in a password manager but particularly when you are dealing with random passwords, you are inevitably going to forget them so you need to save them somewhere.

Even passwords made from combinations of words that are otherwise easy to remember can be forgotten if you suddenly get distracted with other things.

[LoyceV]

The disk image obviously is not something that should go in a password manager

I actually did that once (at work!): I stored the password to an encrypted container inside that encrypted container. Luckily I had a backup of the data.
And you'll still have to remember the password to the password manager