cgsecurity.org

Hi,

I had an encrypted drive with Truecrypt on an external USB 3.0 drive (WD My Book) and I decided to put the drive into my computer case, connected via SATA. Bad idea...

Then the drive (I'm not talking about the mounted volume) didn't appear in Explorer anymore. In disk management (Windows 7), it said the drive wasn't initialized but I didn't do it. Truecrypt was also able to see my disk, so I tried to mount the drive anyway, but it said the password was wrong or the drive corrupted.

So I restored the volume header with Truecrypt and then I could mount the volume. Then it appeared in Explorer (the mounted volume, not the drive) but when trying to browse it, Explorer said the volume wasn't accessible or corrupted.

Then I decided to step back and to reconnect the drive in USB 3.0, but Windows still see it as "non initialized". I had to restore the volume header once again because Truecrypt said the password was wrong again. But the mounted volume is still "not accessible or corrupted". And the drive don't show up anymore in the explorer.

I'm very sad and angry, I don't know what happened. I'd like to recover my drive, even partially cause I had a lot of personal data on it (it's a 2TB and it was almost full), such as photos or recordings (I make music). But I don't understand how to use testdisk since it's a crypted drive. And since Explorer don't show the drive anymore, I don't know what should I do on the drive or on the mounted volume. I'd be very thankfull to anyone who helps me.

Best regards.

Hi there,

I am really sorry to hear about the issue you experience.
So you tried putting back the hard drive in the My Book enclosure and you still don't see it in Disk Management?
In this case you could try with a data recovery software or, if this doesn't help, you could contact a data recovery company which, unfortunately, could be pricy. Here is a list with the partner companies of Western Digital: http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.a ... egion=emea
I hope you will be able to get your data back.

Regards,
Dorian_WD

I can see the drive in Disk Management but it says it's not initialized. That's why it doesn't appear in Explorer anymore. However, Truecrypt also detect it and the volume can be mounted. But when I try to browse it, Windows says it's corrupted.

You can try to remove the encryption: Open TrueCrypt and right click on the partition you want decrypted. In the right click menu, select Permanently Decrypt.

That would mean writing corrupted data from the corrupted volume on the drive. I will not do that, it will not solve anything.

Should I run testdisk on the mounted volume or directly on the drive ? Anyone knows what means "drive not initiliazed" ? First I'd like to understand what happened before taking any decision.

Run PhotoRec on the unlocked volume. If no valid file is found, your truecrypt partition is corrupted:
- bad truecrypt header / restored truecrypt header from another volume
- bad partition location / truecrypt header restored at the wrong location