Recovery true crypt

How to recover a mountable volume with a damaged filesystem

WARNING: Repairing a damaged filesystem might in the worse case scenario result in a catastrophic data loss!


Symptoms: TrueCrypt is able to mount your volume but data on it is inaccessible. Windows reports one of the following errors:

    * Drive is not accessible. The volume does not contain a recognized filesystem.
    * The drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?

When attempting to repair using chkdsk, the following error is reported: 'CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.'.


Solution: First, do not format or write anything to the drive. Doing so may result in a total data loss. Also, before proceeding I recommend doing a backup of the TrueCrypt container if possible.

      1. Begin with downloading and unpacking TestDisk (version used is 6.11.3) from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download
      2. Mount your damaged volume in TrueCrypt.
      3. Run testdisk_win.exe in the testdisk-6.11.3/win folder.
      4. Choose to create a log file.
      5. Select the drive letter of the damaged volume.
      6. Select 'None' when asked for partition type.
      7. Select 'Advanced'.
      8. Select '[Type]' at the bottom of the screen --> Choose NTFS (if you are running NTFS) --> 'Boot' --> 'Rebuild BS'
      9. Now, wait some time while TestDrives rebuilds the boot sector of the partition/drive. You can now backup important files using the 'List' option. Navigate using the arrow keys. 'C' to copy and 'Q' to quit when finished. The recovered files will be saved in /win.


- By this time you should have recovered most of your important files -

10. Now, lets move on and try to restore the filesystem of the volume itself. Choose 'Write' and wait for TestDrive to rebuild the boot sector.
11. Quit TestDrive properly, dismount all TrueCrypt drives and restart the computer.
12. Mount your TrueCrypt volume. Data should be accessible now. I recommend to run a disk check. In TrueCrypt, right click on the mounted volume and choose 'Check filesystem'. Then 'Repair filesystem'.

Everything should work as normal now. Hope this helps.

-- celerity