Need urgent help with TrueCrypt!

Hello. Here is my situation: I partitioned my hard drive so I could store my data on the newly created partition and once I did that I encrypted it with TrueCrypt. After that I went ahead and formatted my computer thinking that I was going to easily recover the encrypted partition by just re-downloading TrueCrypt and decrypting it. This was of course not the case. When I click on the partition, it says that "You need to format the disk in drive D: before you can use it."
When I try to decrypt with TrueCrypt it says that it's not a TrueCrypt volume or the password is incorrect. I know the password is correct so I know there has to be something wrong but I don't know what that is. I did not make any backup of the header because I honestly did not know I had to do that.
I am running Windows 7.
Any advice? Thanks so much!

 

What, specifically, do you mean by that? What did you actually do?

Is D the partition's original drive letter, or is it an available, unused drive letter that you are able to assign to your TrueCrypt volume each time you mount it? Clicking on a partition's original drive letter isn't the way to access your encrypted data. You need to open TC and use the "Select Device" button, select the partition from the list, click OK, choose Mount and then supply the password. If you just go into Windows Explorer and click on the partition's usual drive letter then you will see the 'unformatted' message that you quoted.

Try mounting the volume using the embedded backup header. (Mount Options: Use backup header embedded in volume if available). This might work, but if not then please provide more details about your situation, as your current description is too brief.

 

Thank for the response Dantz. By formatting the computer I mean that I just partition the drive so I could save my data in the new partition and then I installed a fresh copy of Windows in the main drive. Yes, the message: "You need to format the disk in drive D: before you can use it." is when I click on the drive in the Windows Explorer, I just thought it would be helpful to mention it. When I try to decrypt it I do open TC and click on "Select Device" and do it from there, but says I have the wrong password or is not a TC volume.

 

Your explanation is still incomplete. I wish you would just spell out what you did and saw in detail so I won't have to do all your typing for you. Anyway, here's my guess, and please correct me where I'm wrong otherwise we will get nowhere:

1. You created a separate data partition "D" on a functioning Windows system
2. You copied some data into the partition
3. You encrypted the entire partition with TrueCrypt, thus encrypting your data "in-place"
4. You reinstalled Windows 7 on drive C
5. Since step 4, you can no longer mount the TrueCrypt volume on partition D, instead getting the "incorrect password or not a TC volume" prompt.

OK so far? Now, have you tried mounting the volume using the embedded backup header? Because if the above description is correct then that ought to work.

FYI, during installation Windows 7 often tries to 'fix' partitions that it doesn't recognize by rebuilding their boot sectors etc. In the case of TrueCrypt-encrypted partitions this overwrites a piece of the volume header, resulting in the above error message. However, the embedded backup headers at the opposite end of the partition are usually untouched and should still work, unless that is you allowed Windows 7 to perform a full format or you changed the size of the partition.

 

Yes, that is basically what I did. I did try to mount it with the embedded backup header but still getting that same error. I know the password is correct. Thanks again.

 

The embedded backup header should have worked under the stated scenario.

Did you allow Windows to format partition D?

Or, did you change the size of partition D?

 

No. I did not allow windows to format the drive or neither did I change the size.
The copy of Windows that I installed on drive C was for a dell computer and the computer is a Toshiba. I had to install some of the drivers. Can this be a reason why it is not letting me decrypt the drive?

 

I honestly don't know, but I will say that from here on out things will get very technical and the chances of success are not that great. Look at some of my other posts describing WinHex procedures to get an idea of what's coming next, if we should choose to go that route.

I have to warn you that I'm not willing to provide endless step-by-step procedures. If you want to mess around with WinHex on the chance of recovering your volume then you're going to have to learn quite a lot of new stuff, with no guarantee of success. It would have been much, much easier just to keep backups.