Had to interrupt TC encryption of wrong target drive -- recovery?

Discussion in 'encryption problems' started by secwild, Jun 23, 2015.

  1. secwild

    secwild Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2015
    Posts:
    1
    I was in the process of attempting to do a backup. The plan was to prepare a second USB drive to be a mirror of my "active drive". I screwed up.
    1. I opened TrueCrypt and selected the target USB drive. Unfortunately, I selected the wrong drive -- the original that I was attempting to back up.
    2. I began encrypting using the "encrypt a non-system partition/drive option."
    3. Within a few seconds, I realized my error. :(
    4. I cancelled the process.
    5. I closed TrueCrypt.
    6. I made a bit-by-bit image of the USB drive and stored it separately.
    7. I re-opened TrueCrypt and mounted the drive I had just damaged by initiating a new encryption process on it.
    8. Interesting, I am able to at least perform Auto-Mount the "whole drive". It then mounts a new drive letter. The new drive letter, if clicked, gives a "L: is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect." message.

    I was hoping that I stopped the process early enough that it was only in the formatting stage of the encryption and hadn't written over anything yet.

    Is it possible to recover the original data and/or partitions? I am running TestDisk and Photorec on the mounted L: drive (the one that Windows Explorer wants to format upon opening).

    Inside my original decrypted drive were additional TrueCrypt file containers, for what it's worth.

    Can I find a way to scrape up the original data and partitions? Is there any way through this mess?
    Thank you for your time and thoughts.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2015
  2. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2013
    Posts:
    2,115
    Location:
    Brasil
    Dan you decrypt that partition?

    Remember, the partition letter that windows shows (e.g. "C:\") isn't used at all after encryption. You can right click "My computer" than "Manage -> Disk Management" (or something like that) and remove the letter. Then de-crypt that drive, and put a letter back on it.
     
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