Preboot Password Not Working- VeraCrypt v1.13

[Peter Manzelli]

Ok- so Windows updated last night and something is now up with my hard drive. The line of work I am in requires a fully encrypted drive so I used Veracrypt (I used Truecrypt in the past and it was awesome!). I use pre-boot authentication. Now when I start the machine up I input my password (when I am at home in my office I always press F5 to see it to make sure I don't fat finger it :-) ) which I know is 100% correct. I hit enter and then enter again as I don't have a PIM set. The computer thinks and thinks, and it comes back with "Incorrect password".

Awesome. I'm locked out of my machine. Stupid me can't find my recovery disk and the iso file is on the drive in question (also stupid facepalm). So I removed the hard drive and put it into a drive dock hooked up to another Windows 7 x64 machine to see if I can at least mount the bad boy and get the iso file. Here's the dilemma:

I mount the drive without Pre-Boot Authentication and I get the following (every time):

Operation failed due to one or more of the following:

• Wrong mount mode
• Incorrect password
• Incorrect volume PIM number
• Incorrect PRF Hash
• Not a valid volume

Source: MountVolume; 6827

I'm going bananas. I would rather not wipe the drive but I know the following:

• My password input is 100% correct

Any help would be fantastic. Here are the machine specs:

• Lenovo Y50
• Windows 7 x64
• Veracrypt V1.13
• Encryption used: AES 256 (or equivalent- I can't seem to remember)
• Password was a short password letters and 5 numbers no symbols (I can never remember to put those in if I have them- I know bad me...not as secure)
• No PIM (blank)
• Intel BIOS

If there is anything else please let me know- i need to get this solved without a hard drive wipe.

[Mounir IDRASSI]

Since you are sure the password is correct, the only explanation to your issue is that something on Windows has damaged the VeraCrypt volume header on the disk.
The header is where the encryption master key is stored and it is protected by the password. When you enter the password, VeraCrypt bootloader tries to decrypt the header to get the master key but in your case it is getting invalid data and that's why your passwod is rejected.

This is confirmed by the fact that you failed to mount the disk on another machine using the Pre-boot authentication option.

The only other copy of the volume header is present on the Rescue Disk created during the system encryption. If you don't have the Rescue Disk, I'm afraid it is impossible to boot or decrypt your drive. That's why burning or at leasting storing the Rescue Disk ISO file in a safe place is very important and the VeraCrypt wizard tries to emphisize that.

That being said, I'm surprised that a simple Windows updates could do such harm to your system. Are you sure it was an update and not an upgrade (for example an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10)?

Anyway, your only hope now is to find the Rescue Disk that you have burned.