Accidentally quick formatted TrueCrypt external HDD

Hi,

As the title says, I accidentally quick formatted my TrueCrypt HDD. I would thoroughly appreciate any help, thanks so much in advance for taking the time to read this.

I've been reading around so I know I must avoid writing anything to the drive etc.

Initially it was telling me my password wasn't working (and wouldn't mount the drive) but then I restored the volume header and the drive mounted using my password.

When I double click the mounted drive to open it in TC it says "You need to format the disk in drive Z: before you can use it." I click cancel (i.e. I don't click "Format Disk") and it says "Z:\ is not accessible. The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted."

One other thing to note is that there are two partitions in my "history" inside TC, Partition0 and Partition1. I recall that I used to be able to see both partitions, now I can only see partition0 (e.g. inside "select device").

Thanks so much for helping, I really appreciate it.

 

I was in the process of typing a response when it became far too lengthy and I decided to just turn it into a dedicated thread.

It looks like you've done everything properly so far, and you're fortunate that the backup headers were readily found by TC, that's not always the case.

The errors you're getting are a result of a corrupted filestructure - which is understandable, given the quick format probably eradicated the beginning and possibly the end of the drive.

Data recovery programs like Active@ and GetDataBack seems to be the most recommended file recovery software for usage with damaged filestructures.

You'll want to mount your disk like you have, and then run one of these programs on the disk while mounted. That should resolve your issue.