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I accidentally quick formatted on Windows 10 a VeraCrypt-encrypted unmounted partition. My objective is to recover the data.

Following several threads, I successfully used VeraCrypt "Restore Volume Header" tool and I am able to mount the volume with the right password.

Unfortunately I am unable to access the mounted volume, I got the windows message :

You need to format the disk before you can use it.

I then type CANCEL and get:

A:/ is not accessible. The volume does not contain a recognized file system"

When I run Diskpart and hit the command List volume here is the result for the encrypted partition:

N° volume   Ltr  Name         Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info                                               
----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------                                                                                         
Volume 1     E                RAW    Partition     19 G   Healthy

I tried several data recovery tools such as EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and Auslogics file recovery but none of them worked properly : in both cases I was unable to select the mounted volume and on Auslogics I was even unable to select the encrypted partition.

Do you have any suggestion I could work on ?

Arnaud BUBBLE
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1 Answers1

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If you have successfully recovered the volume header with veracrypt and that you can mount it with your password, it is a good sign.

And the reason why you get this message from windows, is probably because when you accidentally formatted the drive, windows associated it with a letter and a recognized partition format, and this is maybe "masking" its real format to your recovery tools.

This:

A:/ is not accessible. The volume does not contain a recognized file system"

Shows that Windows associated it with A: drive

So try to remove this association:

Your drive should NOT be mounted in Veracrypt. In the Windows 10 search tool, type partitions and open the partition manager. Find your drive, it should be associated with a letter (A:). Right click on its partition and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". Select the letter and click the Delete button.

Then retry to mount it with Veracrypt and see if you can open it, if not try to access the mounted partition with one of your recovery tools, you should hopefully get better results

Thomas G
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  • Thanks for helping. Unfortunately it did not work out. As long as my drive is not mounted on veracrypt, it appears as an empty E: partition. I then select this partition and choose a letter to mount it with veracrypt : it can be A or G or anything. It then appears as a new device. In Windows partition manager, I just see my E: partition – Arnaud BUBBLE Feb 10 '19 at 18:15