I just installed Veracrypt on my pc running Windows 10. It successfully restarted and completed the test run and then began encrypting everything. While It was encrypting the computer froze and crashed. I held down the power button to turn it off and then turned it back on. I entered the VeraCrypt password and it then said it was starting Windows, it kept loading and then the screen went completely black. I have restarted the PC and I keep getting stuck on the black screen and can't boot into Windows. How do I fix this? Can I recover my data?
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@mitsen20, Did you boot off of the Veracrypt emergency rescue disk? How did that work out? Possibly, you could take the hard drive out of the computer, put it into a hard drive enclosure, boot an operating system that can run Veracrypt, like maybe a linux distribution, and then mount the partition using your password, and then you can check and fix the errors in the hard drive - it's one of the options that you can right-click and get.
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Yes you could use a SATA to USB adapter that does not have an enclosure, such as this one https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/general/thread/35c5a4d0cd/
I agree with DDD, that you should use an SSD enclosure, if you care about your data on the disk, because with an unenclosed adapter, there is a high risk of the cable being bumped and disconnected, and possible data loss, or time loss.
Also, if you care about the data, I highly recommend cloning the disk BEFORE performing decryption, or any other task on the disk, and then doing data recovery on the clone only. For cloning, please use exact-sector-by-sector setting, not intelligent-sector setting.
Clonezilla - non-GUI cloning https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
If the source disk has Bad Sectors, use Expert Mode > "-rescue" option to continue cloning all readable sectors
I just installed Veracrypt on my pc running Windows 10. It successfully restarted and completed the test run and then began encrypting everything. While It was encrypting the computer froze and crashed. I held down the power button to turn it off and then turned it back on. I entered the VeraCrypt password and it then said it was starting Windows, it kept loading and then the screen went completely black. I have restarted the PC and I keep getting stuck on the black screen and can't boot into Windows. How do I fix this? Can I recover my data?
@mitsen20, Did you boot off of the Veracrypt emergency rescue disk? How did that work out? Possibly, you could take the hard drive out of the computer, put it into a hard drive enclosure, boot an operating system that can run Veracrypt, like maybe a linux distribution, and then mount the partition using your password, and then you can check and fix the errors in the hard drive - it's one of the options that you can right-click and get.
Can I connect the hard drive to my desktop PC, without using an enclousure as a secondary drive, and then unencrypt it? If yes how is it done?
Last edit: James Thompson 2023-04-29
Yes you could use a SATA to USB adapter that does not have an enclosure, such as this one
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/general/thread/35c5a4d0cd/
I agree with DDD, that you should use an SSD enclosure, if you care about your data on the disk, because with an unenclosed adapter, there is a high risk of the cable being bumped and disconnected, and possible data loss, or time loss.
Also, if you care about the data, I highly recommend cloning the disk BEFORE performing decryption, or any other task on the disk, and then doing data recovery on the clone only. For cloning, please use exact-sector-by-sector setting, not intelligent-sector setting.
Clonezilla - non-GUI cloning
https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
If the source disk has Bad Sectors, use Expert Mode > "-rescue" option to continue cloning all readable sectors
Partition Assistant WinPE USB:
Add custom drivers, such as NVMe, if necessary. Does not work with some monitors.
https://www.diskpart.com/help/make-bootable-cd-wizard.html
Ventoy - bootable USB Creator
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html