grub and encrypted partition problem

[Hans <hans.ullrich@loop.de>]

Hello all, I am spending now hours for hours with a problem, which I can not 
get fixed. 

It would be nice, if someone has a clue. The problem I have is very special.


My environment:
I have debian on my first harddrive, with /usr and /var on an enrypted 
filesystem. There are the correct entries in /etc/fstab and /etc/cryptab.

A second installation (kali-linux, which is also debian based) is installed on 
the second harddrive (unencrypted).

The bootloader grub2 is installed on the first harddrive in MBR.

The problem:

I can start kali-linux and it is booting well.  In Kali-Linux I can do grub-
install and update-grub, working well.

When I want to start debian, it ist starting, but when I have to enter the 
password, the keyboard is not working and frozen.

However, I did a trick: I put the content of /usr and /var to two unencrypted 
partitions (/dev/sdb5 and /dev/sdb6), got those entries into /etc/fstab and I 
could start debian again.

Then I opened the encrypted partitions, and remounted /dev/mapper/usr and 
/dev/mapper/var to /usr and /var.

Now the system was in a state, where it should normally be!

After this, I did a grub-install and update-grub again, which showed no errors 
and also built a new initramfs. No errors again. 

But, after next boot it showed, NOTHING hat changed. Although the root-
partition was mounted (which is /dev/sda6) , it mourned, /dev/sda6 apeared not 
in /etc/mtab. And the keyboard hanged again.

I am searching now for several days for a solution. Where does grub read 
from??? 

Is there any trick, to forcely override all grub related things, or do I think 
completely wrong and the combination of debian on one disk and kali on the 
second drive will never work?

I already had it running, but at the time the partitions /usr and /var were 
unencrypted. 

Sorry, I do not give up easy, but at the moment I do not know, what to do 
next.

Thank you very much for any help!!!

Best regards

Hans