I have Migrated from truecrypt to Veracrypt. I recently had a Partition that is encrypted with veracrypt, that apparently had a damaged header, so that it is not selectable as a Partition in Veracrypt at all and Windows does recognise it only as "Free Space". I can not assign it a drive letter without having to create a new partition first and I'm relcutant to do so in order to avaoid damaging the Partition.
This had happened to me once also with Truecrypt before and I was able to recover the partition using a Tool called TestCrypt (http://testcrypt.sourceforge.net/).
Unfortunately this tool only supports TrueCrypt and not VeraCrypt.
I am therefore not able to recover the damaged partition.
Anyone has a solution for this kind of problem? How can I mount the partition, if it is not selecctable in VeraCrypt?
Thank You!
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First, a damaged header means either the hard drive contains errors (with the risk of dying soon) or there is an external program that overwrite data in this partition. Since it already happened to you before, I suggest to try to find the culprit behind this before being in a situation where no data can be recovered at all.
Before using an external tool, did you try checking the option "Use backup header embedded in volume if available"? This usually solves all damaged headers situation.
I took a look at the code of TestCrypt and it should be easy to modify it in order to support VeraCrypt. I'll work on this.
Please let's know if the solution of using the backup header works for you.
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Anonymous
-
2014-11-28
Hi Mounir,
thank you for your reply.
The header is not a problem, because I have a backup of it.
The problem is that the partition is not selectable inside VeraCrypt or Windows at all.
I therefore can not perform any actions on the drive at all, as it does not have a Drive letter, and also just writing for example "\Device\Harddisk1\Partition3" in the path does also not work.
The windows disk manager shows the Space of this partition as "Unallocated" and asks me to create a simple Partition and assign a drive letter, which I have not done so far in order to avoid any further damages. Normally the encrypted partition would be shown as "RAW" and have a drive letter.
The procedures that you describe can not be performed because in the current situation the Partition is not found.
In such situations TestCrypt came in handy, when this happened on a TrueCrypt encrypted Partition.
With veraCrypt, I don't know how to proceede. Therefore a tool like TestCrypt schould be available for VeraCrypt as well. Whatever testCrypt does, it is the solution for situations like these, when the encrypted partition is not found anymore.
If you are able to port TestCrypt for VeraCrypt, then please do so. I and many others who are in the same situation or who will be in this situation in the future will be very thankful.
The existence of TestCrypt alone shows that there is a need for such a tool also for VeraCrypt.
Thank You for your efforts!
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Anonymous
-
2014-11-28
I might add that there are four Partitions on the affected drive and only the Last Partition is encrypted and only that Partition is not showing up.
The other Partitions are accessible just fine.
So I am pretty sure that this is not a Hardware error.
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Thank you for all these clarifications. Indeed, I didn't understand you original question correctly.
If TestCrypt is able to find this partition, then VeraCrypt should also be able to do so. I think the issue comes from the need of administrative privileges in order to be able to see this partition (which is unusual).
Did you try running VeraCrypt with administrative privileges by right clicking on this link and choose "Run as administrator"? The partition should be visible after that and you should be able to mount normally or using the backup header in case its header was damaged.
Thanks for your update on this issue.
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Anonymous
-
2014-11-28
I am logged in as Admin and VeraCrypt is running with Admin Privileges.
TestCrypt is not finding this particular Partition!!! TestCrypt would however find this Partition, if it was a TrueCrypt Partition.
I just gave an example that I was in my current Situation before on a Partition that was encrypted with TrueCrypt and I was able to find the Partition by using TestCrypt.
Initially also testCrypt can't find the Partition right away.
testCrypt however takes the Password and scans the Disk Sector By Sector, until it finds a section of the Disk it is able to decrypt with the provided Password and only then finds the remainder of the Partition.
If I run TestCrypt on this VeraCrypt encrypted Partition, it does not find a Partition, because it does not understand the VeraCrypt encryption, as it is different from TrueCrypt. COnsequently also testCrypt reports that it didn't find a decryptable Partition.
It is not a question of Admin Privileges. It rather a error in the Partition table, that only a Tool like TestCrypt can overcome, if it would be able to understand VeraCrypt encryption.
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Thanks again for your patience! I wrongly thought that TestCrypt was displaying the partition in its main window but as you point it out there is an issue in the partition table.
I looked quickly at the source of TestCrypt and while it is not difficult to modify it in order to support VeraCrypt, its current way of doing things will not be efficient for VeraCrypt: TestCrypt derives the decryption key from the password for every 512 bytes of the hard drive! This was acceptable for TrueCrypt because it uses only 1000 iterations but in the case of VeraCrypt this will make the process takes ages to finish!!
A better approach is to derive the decryption key using a user specified algorithms (for example SHA512) and then use it to scan all the sectors of the hard drive. The process will be much quicker.
I'll try to do a quick implementation of this idea and I'll update this thread on this.
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Mounir, did you have any progres with this? I see this is a very important step in the development of Veracrypt. Currently, in this situation, there is no answer until a tool is developed.
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I understand the need for this tool. Actually, I was able to reproduce a case where Windows is unable to see an NTFS partition although it is outside the scope of VeraCrypt: if I partition a disk using Ubuntu Linux to have two NTFS primary partition, Windows only sees the first one and not the second.
The modifications to adapt TestCrypt are not trivial because the key derivation must be done differently and it also needs modifications to the device driver.
I'll do my best to give you an update on this before the end of the week.
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Unfortunately I had to investigate and correct a crash and this took me time so I could not advance on working on TestCrypt. Moreover, the release date of 1.0f is nearing and I'm late on the development a some of its features.
As I said, I'll do my best. One better would be to contact the author of TestCrypt to see if he can work on adapting TestCrypt to VeraCrypt. I'll try to contact.
I'll update this discussion with any news on this side.
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I'm in a terrible trouble, as I cannot mount my VC-encrypted documents drive and the backup is corrupted as well :( Years of hard research and work is now inaccessible and my only hopy is a tool like the one you mentioned - a modified version of TestCrypt. Have you succeeded to make one to any degree?
Hoping to hear from you -
Kindly,
Kaliya
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Oh thank god I'm not the only one in this situation :(
I just decided to open up my external 3TB HDD and put it as internal, and now it won't detect the partition i had encrypted.
I'm using linux though. I guess that makes me even more screwed, since TestCrypt doesn't support linux.
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Hi Time Flows,
Just to check if this is the same issue, are the other partitions of the disk visible to the system?
Changing a disk from external to internal does not always work as the controller of the external disk casing may add some protection to the disk to avoid it being used once removed from this casing (this is the case for example of WD external drives).
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This is scary since all of my drives have been encrypted. I have never lost a partition from TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt. Any tips on how to prevent this? Thank You
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Make external header key backups using VeraCrypt for your non-system encrypted volumes. Click the Tool Options button in the GUI.
Create a rescue disk for system encryption and test that you can successfully boot using the rescue disk.
You should always backup your data since user error, software issues or hardware failure/issues can cause loss of data even when you are not using encryption.
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2016-02-23
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Yes, you want to make an external backup of the header to each of the volumes.
Select your dismounted volume, click the Volume Tools button > Backup Volume Header
I do not know if restoring using the external header backup would help the people in this thread that somehow lost being able to identify their volume in VeraCrypt or Windows. It appears that Windows Disk Management is able to see the device. Reading the posts again, it would seem possible to recover the volumes if they had been able to restore using the external header backup. At least be able to mount the volume and attempt data recovery if the filesystem structure was damaged.
In my opinion, it is best practice to make an external header backup for each encrypted non-system volume and update the rescue disk anytime you upgrade VeraCrypt.
Again, backup your data! :-)
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2016-02-23
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"In my opinion, it is best practice to make an external header backup for each encrypted non-system volume and update the rescue disk anytime you upgrade VeraCrypt."
I absolutely agree! Everytime I create a new volume or change password, keyfiles, or PIM, I create a new backup header file. I don't care much for rescue disk because I have images of my OS. I don't save data on my OS drive. So, If OS goes down, I just reimage.
I have had several incident of bad headers and that was when I first learned how to use TrueCrypt. I always mounted with the backup header option checked. That often lead to corrupted headers. Ever since I mount without that option checked, I have never had problems. Now, I would only use that option or the backup header file if the headers are corrupted which I have not run into yet.
I also have had one incident where my drive went bad. I was only able to mount as read-only. If I mount as read-write, it would not allow me. WOULD you happen to know why??? I think this is not the same as the folks above losing partitions.
"Again, backup your data! :-)"
I agree. Hard drives are cheap now a day.
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I also have had one incident where my drive went bad. I was only able to mount as read-only. If I mount as read-write, it would not allow me. WOULD you happen to know why???
One possiblity is the permissions and/or ownership changed on the drive.
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By mistake I have performed a Clean command on my VC encrypted drive. I will give you 100 $ (via Paypal), if you succedd recovering my VC drive, so I can access all the files again.
I used diskpart to perform a "Clean" command (not "Clean All"), on a whole disk, with one VC-partition.
I have tried to create a new "RAW"-partition (without drive-letter) on the original disk.
I will give you full access to the drive, via TeamViewer app, so you can perform all operations, as if you were sitting by my PC..
Hope to hear from you soon -
Kindly,
Kaliya
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Please amend https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=FAQ with info on damaged header and backup volume header. It's only mentioned as a tool for password reset now.
And please clarify: would TestCrypt be still useful and so desirable to update if we already make header backup?
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TestCrypt scans a hard drive, sector by sector, as it looks for a TrueCrypt header that can be unlocked with the given password. It is useful when the partition layout of a disk is lost or corrupted.
If the header on the disk is corrupted, then TestCrypt can not find the location of the TrueCrypt partition and having a header backup will not be useful for TestCrypt.
Tu put it simply:
TestCrypt is useful in situations where the header is valid on the disk but its location is unknown.
a backup of the header is useful when we know the location of the volume.
As you can see, the two can not be mixed.
Clearly, an update to TestCrypt in order to support VeraCrypt volumes is desirable as it would help people with drives that have been mistakenly cleaned and for which the exact location of the volume start is not known.
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I HAD WORKING IN VERACRPT DRIVE (in E:) FOR 6 MONTHS WHEN I REINSTALLED THE WINDOWS 7 (C:) VERACRPT DATA IS NOT SEEN.. PLEASE SUGGEST ANY REMEDY FOR THAT AS THE DATA IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME
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Hi,
I have Migrated from truecrypt to Veracrypt. I recently had a Partition that is encrypted with veracrypt, that apparently had a damaged header, so that it is not selectable as a Partition in Veracrypt at all and Windows does recognise it only as "Free Space". I can not assign it a drive letter without having to create a new partition first and I'm relcutant to do so in order to avaoid damaging the Partition.
This had happened to me once also with Truecrypt before and I was able to recover the partition using a Tool called TestCrypt (http://testcrypt.sourceforge.net/).
Unfortunately this tool only supports TrueCrypt and not VeraCrypt.
I am therefore not able to recover the damaged partition.
Anyone has a solution for this kind of problem? How can I mount the partition, if it is not selecctable in VeraCrypt?
Thank You!
First, a damaged header means either the hard drive contains errors (with the risk of dying soon) or there is an external program that overwrite data in this partition. Since it already happened to you before, I suggest to try to find the culprit behind this before being in a situation where no data can be recovered at all.
Before using an external tool, did you try checking the option "Use backup header embedded in volume if available"? This usually solves all damaged headers situation.
I took a look at the code of TestCrypt and it should be easy to modify it in order to support VeraCrypt. I'll work on this.
Please let's know if the solution of using the backup header works for you.
Hi Mounir,
thank you for your reply.
The header is not a problem, because I have a backup of it.
The problem is that the partition is not selectable inside VeraCrypt or Windows at all.
I therefore can not perform any actions on the drive at all, as it does not have a Drive letter, and also just writing for example "\Device\Harddisk1\Partition3" in the path does also not work.
The windows disk manager shows the Space of this partition as "Unallocated" and asks me to create a simple Partition and assign a drive letter, which I have not done so far in order to avoid any further damages. Normally the encrypted partition would be shown as "RAW" and have a drive letter.
The procedures that you describe can not be performed because in the current situation the Partition is not found.
In such situations TestCrypt came in handy, when this happened on a TrueCrypt encrypted Partition.
With veraCrypt, I don't know how to proceede. Therefore a tool like TestCrypt schould be available for VeraCrypt as well. Whatever testCrypt does, it is the solution for situations like these, when the encrypted partition is not found anymore.
If you are able to port TestCrypt for VeraCrypt, then please do so. I and many others who are in the same situation or who will be in this situation in the future will be very thankful.
The existence of TestCrypt alone shows that there is a need for such a tool also for VeraCrypt.
Thank You for your efforts!
I might add that there are four Partitions on the affected drive and only the Last Partition is encrypted and only that Partition is not showing up.
The other Partitions are accessible just fine.
So I am pretty sure that this is not a Hardware error.
Thank you for all these clarifications. Indeed, I didn't understand you original question correctly.
If TestCrypt is able to find this partition, then VeraCrypt should also be able to do so. I think the issue comes from the need of administrative privileges in order to be able to see this partition (which is unusual).
Did you try running VeraCrypt with administrative privileges by right clicking on this link and choose "Run as administrator"? The partition should be visible after that and you should be able to mount normally or using the backup header in case its header was damaged.
Thanks for your update on this issue.
I am logged in as Admin and VeraCrypt is running with Admin Privileges.
TestCrypt is not finding this particular Partition!!! TestCrypt would however find this Partition, if it was a TrueCrypt Partition.
I just gave an example that I was in my current Situation before on a Partition that was encrypted with TrueCrypt and I was able to find the Partition by using TestCrypt.
Initially also testCrypt can't find the Partition right away.
testCrypt however takes the Password and scans the Disk Sector By Sector, until it finds a section of the Disk it is able to decrypt with the provided Password and only then finds the remainder of the Partition.
If I run TestCrypt on this VeraCrypt encrypted Partition, it does not find a Partition, because it does not understand the VeraCrypt encryption, as it is different from TrueCrypt. COnsequently also testCrypt reports that it didn't find a decryptable Partition.
It is not a question of Admin Privileges. It rather a error in the Partition table, that only a Tool like TestCrypt can overcome, if it would be able to understand VeraCrypt encryption.
Thanks again for your patience! I wrongly thought that TestCrypt was displaying the partition in its main window but as you point it out there is an issue in the partition table.
I looked quickly at the source of TestCrypt and while it is not difficult to modify it in order to support VeraCrypt, its current way of doing things will not be efficient for VeraCrypt: TestCrypt derives the decryption key from the password for every 512 bytes of the hard drive! This was acceptable for TrueCrypt because it uses only 1000 iterations but in the case of VeraCrypt this will make the process takes ages to finish!!
A better approach is to derive the decryption key using a user specified algorithms (for example SHA512) and then use it to scan all the sectors of the hard drive. The process will be much quicker.
I'll try to do a quick implementation of this idea and I'll update this thread on this.
Mounir, did you have any progres with this? I see this is a very important step in the development of Veracrypt. Currently, in this situation, there is no answer until a tool is developed.
I understand the need for this tool. Actually, I was able to reproduce a case where Windows is unable to see an NTFS partition although it is outside the scope of VeraCrypt: if I partition a disk using Ubuntu Linux to have two NTFS primary partition, Windows only sees the first one and not the second.
The modifications to adapt TestCrypt are not trivial because the key derivation must be done differently and it also needs modifications to the device driver.
I'll do my best to give you an update on this before the end of the week.
Unfortunately I had to investigate and correct a crash and this took me time so I could not advance on working on TestCrypt. Moreover, the release date of 1.0f is nearing and I'm late on the development a some of its features.
As I said, I'll do my best. One better would be to contact the author of TestCrypt to see if he can work on adapting TestCrypt to VeraCrypt. I'll try to contact.
I'll update this discussion with any news on this side.
Hi Mounir,
I'm in a terrible trouble, as I cannot mount my VC-encrypted documents drive and the backup is corrupted as well :( Years of hard research and work is now inaccessible and my only hopy is a tool like the one you mentioned - a modified version of TestCrypt. Have you succeeded to make one to any degree?
Hoping to hear from you -
Kindly,
Kaliya
Oh thank god I'm not the only one in this situation :(
I just decided to open up my external 3TB HDD and put it as internal, and now it won't detect the partition i had encrypted.
I'm using linux though. I guess that makes me even more screwed, since TestCrypt doesn't support linux.
Hi Time Flows,
Just to check if this is the same issue, are the other partitions of the disk visible to the system?
Changing a disk from external to internal does not always work as the controller of the external disk casing may add some protection to the disk to avoid it being used once removed from this casing (this is the case for example of WD external drives).
This is scary since all of my drives have been encrypted. I have never lost a partition from TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt. Any tips on how to prevent this? Thank You
Make external header key backups using VeraCrypt for your non-system encrypted volumes. Click the Tool Options button in the GUI.
Create a rescue disk for system encryption and test that you can successfully boot using the rescue disk.
You should always backup your data since user error, software issues or hardware failure/issues can cause loss of data even when you are not using encryption.
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2016-02-23
Enigma, you mean backup header files right?
"Make external header key backup"
Also, these folks lost partitions. How does that backup header files correct the lost of partitions?
Thanks
Last edit: WRVC2016 2016-02-23
Yes, you want to make an external backup of the header to each of the volumes.
Select your dismounted volume, click the Volume Tools button > Backup Volume Header
I do not know if restoring using the external header backup would help the people in this thread that somehow lost being able to identify their volume in VeraCrypt or Windows. It appears that Windows Disk Management is able to see the device. Reading the posts again, it would seem possible to recover the volumes if they had been able to restore using the external header backup. At least be able to mount the volume and attempt data recovery if the filesystem structure was damaged.
In my opinion, it is best practice to make an external header backup for each encrypted non-system volume and update the rescue disk anytime you upgrade VeraCrypt.
Again, backup your data! :-)
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2016-02-23
"In my opinion, it is best practice to make an external header backup for each encrypted non-system volume and update the rescue disk anytime you upgrade VeraCrypt."
I absolutely agree! Everytime I create a new volume or change password, keyfiles, or PIM, I create a new backup header file. I don't care much for rescue disk because I have images of my OS. I don't save data on my OS drive. So, If OS goes down, I just reimage.
I have had several incident of bad headers and that was when I first learned how to use TrueCrypt. I always mounted with the backup header option checked. That often lead to corrupted headers. Ever since I mount without that option checked, I have never had problems. Now, I would only use that option or the backup header file if the headers are corrupted which I have not run into yet.
I also have had one incident where my drive went bad. I was only able to mount as read-only. If I mount as read-write, it would not allow me. WOULD you happen to know why??? I think this is not the same as the folks above losing partitions.
"Again, backup your data! :-)"
I agree. Hard drives are cheap now a day.
One possiblity is the permissions and/or ownership changed on the drive.
Hi,
By mistake I have performed a Clean command on my VC encrypted drive. I will give you 100 $ (via Paypal), if you succedd recovering my VC drive, so I can access all the files again.
I used diskpart to perform a "Clean" command (not "Clean All"), on a whole disk, with one VC-partition.
I have tried to create a new "RAW"-partition (without drive-letter) on the original disk.
I will give you full access to the drive, via TeamViewer app, so you can perform all operations, as if you were sitting by my PC..
Hope to hear from you soon -
Kindly,
Kaliya
Hello Kaliya,
You already have a thread requesting help at the link below. Please do not post in other threads requesting help.
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thread/431f73a7/
Thank you.
Please amend https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=FAQ with info on damaged header and backup volume header. It's only mentioned as a tool for password reset now.
And please clarify: would TestCrypt be still useful and so desirable to update if we already make header backup?
TestCrypt scans a hard drive, sector by sector, as it looks for a TrueCrypt header that can be unlocked with the given password. It is useful when the partition layout of a disk is lost or corrupted.
If the header on the disk is corrupted, then TestCrypt can not find the location of the TrueCrypt partition and having a header backup will not be useful for TestCrypt.
Tu put it simply:
As you can see, the two can not be mixed.
Clearly, an update to TestCrypt in order to support VeraCrypt volumes is desirable as it would help people with drives that have been mistakenly cleaned and for which the exact location of the volume start is not known.
Hi Mounir,
Has there been any development towards getting a VeraCrypt compatible TestCrypt (or equivalent)?
Regards,
I HAD WORKING IN VERACRPT DRIVE (in E:) FOR 6 MONTHS WHEN I REINSTALLED THE WINDOWS 7 (C:) VERACRPT DATA IS NOT SEEN.. PLEASE SUGGEST ANY REMEDY FOR THAT AS THE DATA IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME