Which password does the encrypted phone require?

[grx90]

I mean after not being used for a while my old S8 says
"Your phone is encrypted for security, to start up your phone enter your password"
It seems not to be usual phone password or KNOX password, what else could it be? Surprisingly I couldn't find discussions or any guides about this case. So which password the phone is asking for? 

[arianwen27 · Accepted solution]

Older versions of android didn't have the same security as modern android does. Samsung added their own optional security. It seems you're seeing it. If I remember right, thats a pre-boot password that is usually set by the user. So someone probably set a password at some point.

Worse case scenario, you can probably load into recovery mode and force reset the device.

It's personally not something I've experienced before but I know pre-boot passwords for encryption used to be a thing, the password is set by the user. Kinda hoping it lets you reset it

[grx90]

Aren't those usually PINs though? I saw other encryptions required PINs in the text and their phones opened numeric keyboards. Mine says password for some reason.

[arianwen27]

It's called a "device encryption password" (or at least "s8 device encryption password" in google images shows exactly your issue). Your screenshot basically matches google image results so you aren't alone.

Good news, seems it can be rather easily removed by just resetting the device using the recovery menu. While I was having a look I found multiple YouTube videos showing the reset working

[grx90]

It really does match, I guess it looks like this sometimes, I tried several PINs and I was left with no attempts, so the phone rebooted, anyway thanks for the answer, I guess that should've been it I just couldn't remember the PIN.