I have an external hard drive (no system files on it) which has been encrypted using truecrypt. Suddenly today when i tried to mount the hard drive, I got the following error:

So I tried to mount it using mount options and choosing use backup embedded headers embedded in volume if available option. When I do that the hard drive mounts but I am not able to access any files in the drive.

I get the following error when I click on the drive to open it:

How do I recover my files? This is very important and urgent. Your help will be greatly appreciated

PS: I am using windows 7 64bit

This article Data Recovery from Various File Container Formats and Encrypted Disks may help.

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R-Studio Data Recovery Software

Do you have a copy of the Truecrypt rescue disk or the iso you created?

Unfortunately I have misplaced my rescue disk

Was it a single partition?
NTFS?

Have you cloned/imaged the drive?

Here are my steps I wrote down when I had a look at recovering a deleted partition with Truecrypt I know its not the exact same issue your describing but it might be helpful if sector0 has got corrupted.

I was using Winhex to do this.



Loki

When the drive mounts as drive "j" you could copy the partition to another drive as an image file. Then run recovery software on the image. Dmde would be a good start to make the 'j_partition.img' file. Then you could open it with the Dmde software and see what might be available. How big is the drive/partition?

@Loki

Its a single partition
It is NTFS
No, Hvaen't cloned or imaged the partition

Also looking at your instruction sheet :
[*]How do i action step 3 ? Actually can you help me out with points 3-11 on that list. I haven't used winHex before.

Here is the screen shot when i load the drive in winHex :

@dick

I will try abd do that if recovery method suggested by @loki doesn't work. Also its 1.8TB (massive)

You could just run Dmde and point it towards the external drive and "j" partition to see what partition info is available. I would certainly do that! If you see your partition you can open the volume and then recover a couple of files to a second drive and check them.

Also as you are considering making changes to the partition you MUST backup the partition info!

@dick How do i do that. here is what i see when I open j drive in dmde:

"How do I recover my files? This is very important and urgent"

Firstly you should always clone or image the device if possible as if you make a mistake you ruin your chances of recovery or make it more expensive to get a recovery from a pro.
DIY comes with risks & not knowing your limits also puts your data at risk.

If your not sure about something, try & practice & research it using another device

If the data is very important as you say then if I were you I wouldn't risk DIY without an Image backup.



Loki