"You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it" error after mounting

[Jae Kim]

Hi,

I'm getting the "You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it" error when I try to access my encrypted drive after mounting. It had been working properly previously, and I already have important files in the encrypted drive, but it seems the drive has converted itself to RAW for some reason.
It is imperative I do not lose any existing data. How do I access the contents of this drive?

I checked discmgmt.msc, but the encrypted drive is not visible there at all, whether or not I mount it. I have also tried mounting onto a bunch of different drive letters but the same error happens

Thanks in advance!

[Adrian Kentleton]

Your problem is rather bizarre; leaving aside the issue of the data apparently being inaccessible after 'mounting', I find it hard to believe you can apparently 'mount' an encrypted drive at all, if it doesn't show up in Disk Management. (The encrypted drive should show up; the 'mounted', unencrypted one would not.)

How do you 'mount' the drive? Via the GUI, using the 'Select Device...' route? Can you post screenshots (of how it appears to Veracrypt, and not in diskmgmt.msc)? And what versions of Windows and Veracrypt are you using?

One obvious thing to try, is to clear your current drive letter assignments using mountvol /r from an (Administrator) command prompt. You can also do this more fundamentally by editing the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices (backup the key first by 'Exporting' it).

More info about this latter procedure is contained in a (modified by me) version of a post by Enigma2Illusion on 2017-10-09: "Check the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices" using regedit as administrator. Scroll down and you'll find entries starting with "\DosDevices\" which indicate the drive letters that are taken by the system. Before mounting any volume, double click on each one and remove the ones contains the name "VeraCrypt".
Also, there are other entries whose name start with "#{" and "\??\Volume{": double click on each one of them and remove the ones whose data value contains the name "VeraCrypt".

Note that if you clear these entries, you'll have subsequently to re-build any wanted drive letter assignments using diskmgmt.msc (or Veracrypt).