Issue with Mounting and Recovering Data from a VeraCrypt-Encrypted Flash Drive
Open source disk encryption with strong security for the Paranoid
Brought to you by:
idrassi
Menu
▾
▴
Hello! I’m experiencing a problem with a flash drive encrypted with VeraCrypt and cannot recover the data. I’m seeking help from the community. Here are the details:
Problem Description:
The flash drive (8 GB) was encrypted with VeraCrypt. It was working fine yesterday, but today it stopped mounting correctly. On Windows 10, the flash drive is visible in Disk Management as a "Primary Partition" with a RAW file system. When mounted in VeraCrypt (assigned the letter H:), the file system is also recognized as RAW, and the command chkdsk H: /f /r cannot perform the verification.
What Was Done:
Mount Attempt: I mounted the volume in VeraCrypt on Windows 10 using the password. After entering the password, the volume was assigned the letter H:, but no data appeared in "This PC," and the disk properties still showed the file system as RAW.
Check with chkdsk: I opened the Command Prompt as an administrator, entered chkdsk H: /f, and received an error message indicating that the file system is RAW, preventing the check from proceeding. I then tried chkdsk H: /f /r, but the result was the same—the output confirmed that the disk could not be checked due to the RAW format.
Header Recovery: I navigated to "Tools" > "Restore Volume Header" in VeraCrypt, selected the flash drive, but I didn’t have a separate header backup file (.hc). The program suggested using an embedded copy, but after entering the password, the mounting issue persisted.
Attempts with Hetman Partition Recovery and R-Studio: Neither tool helped, likely due to the volume’s encryption.
Different Mounting Settings: I tried mounting with the "Mount without cache" option—the volume mounted, but the data was not displayed. The "Mount read-only" option is unavailable in my VeraCrypt interface. I also attempted "Mount the volume as removable media" and "Apply a copy of the header embedded in the volume," but this didn’t work—the volume mounted, yet the files remained inaccessible.
Last edit: Anton 2025-07-31
If it mounts but the filesystem is corrupted, try copying the unencrypted partition to an IMG file with a hex editor, mount that image file and then you'll be able to run your favorite recovery tools to try and fix it or recover as many files on it as you could.
From now on, back up the header into a separate file, do not rely on the internal backup. This feature saved me so much grief. Make backups of those backups, upload one to your email account.