How to recover VeraCrypt raw disk with MiniTool Wizard Pro?

[dictum9]

Might be easier if I list the steps how I got there.

The hardware is Sun Ultra 40M2, running Windows 7 64-bit Pro.
It has 2 300GB SAS hard drives, in a mirroring configuration. Let's call them disk0 and disk1. I would mirror the data about once a week using Malcrium software. Anytime I could swap disks and the mirror would become the primary boot disk. I thought about setting up RAID 1 but never did.

that was all fine for several years until I decided to install VeraCrypt and encrypt the entire primary (boot) HDD. It needed the password to even get into bootloader. Let's call it disk0.

Then I ran Malcrium Reflect to image disk0 to the secondary HDD, disk1.
It ran seemingly fine but when I tested it, the clone (disk1) would not boot. Something about MBR missing. The encryption screwed up the MBR on disk1. I thought Macrium was an exact bit by bit copy, apparently not.
At that point, disk0 was OK, disk1 was not.

I put the cloned image disk1 back in the secondary position (second tray from the top) where it usually stayed.

Then I decided to encrypt that disk1 second hard drive via a container in VeraCrypt. I used the entire drive as one of the alphabet letters. That was fine too.

This is where things have began to go wrong with this next event.

The primary disk, disk0, failed hardware wise. It started making a high-pitched noise, something failed inside physically. It would no longer boot. I tried all kinds of Window recovery methods, it was failed. When you take it out and shake it, you can hear something being loose inside. The OS just would no longer see it. No OS detected, etc.

With disk0 gone, at that point I had an imperfect clone disk1, which was not capable of booting by itself but you could get into its filesystem if you had a booted Windows 7 and VeraCrypt. You could then click onto the folder, get prompted for the password and decrypt the folder - VeraCrypt calls it a container or a volume I believe.

Problem is, I no longer had a working Windows 7 disk. So I got a new 300GB SAS HDD, installed a new copy of Windows 7 on it I had to purchase. Once I booted up and connected the disk1 in its usual configuration, the OS did not see the disk's filesystem at all, unlike the previous install of Windows 7. It kept asking me do you want to format it? Of course I said no.

I tried VeraCrypt recovery CD I made to boot the disk1, to no avail. I tried Windows recovery CD also to avail.

Then I got a few tools to analyze the disk:

First, I tried the VeraCrypt recovery CD I made. I chose the option to decrypt all, it took something like 15 hours but I am not sure if the files are still encrypted or what.

Second, I tried ICare Data recovery Free to copy the files. It determined that there is 146GB of files on that 300GB partition. But they are all in FILE001.gz format which suggests they are still encrypted. I copied them into a directory but it was ultimately useless since I cannot read them, nor open them with a gunzip Windows tool.

Second, I tried TestDisk. It did not find anything at all on that disk, no partitions at all.

Third, I tried MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 10.2.1. I am not really sure what I am doing so I need some guidance. I have the "Pro" version I purchased. If I could make that disk bootable, that would be best but just making it available to Windows 7 would also be adequate, so I could decrypt the folder in VeraCrypt.

What options do I chose in MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro 10.2.1?

The partition I am concerned about does not show up as NTFS, it has "Other". It also reads
F: 100MB (Active)
E: 279.30GB (None).



So the question is, how do I get to the previous state, with the raw disk (disk1) recognized as a normal disk without having to format it? Just like the previous version of Windows 7 I had. I want to run VeraCrypt, recognize disk1 as an encrypted volume, punch in the VeraCrypt password and get VeraCrypt to unlock the entire container? It does not have to be bootable, since I already have disk0 to boot and get fully up in Windows 7 but I do need to recognize disk1 and all the files on it with VeraCrypt instead of having it raw.

I need to get to the state where I was before the crash of disk0 with a functioning disk1 and its VeraCrypt container.

 

[samuria]

If it's raw that means it's lost the partition table so you want to use partition recovery software not file recovery. Once the partition is recovered files should be there

 

[dictum9]

And how do I do that?

Using MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro.

 

[samuria]

There are lots of free partition recovery software sometimes one won't work but another does

 

[Megahertz07]

I'm not familiar with encryption, but this is what I understand:
- When you encrypt a booting system, it replace the boot loader with its own. This boot loader has the door to the encrypted drive.
- As you encrypted the second drive using the fist one, it has used a key of the fist one. As the fist one died, you don't have the key any more.
- There is nothing wrong with the second drive. The only problem is that it is encrypted. Don't try to use Malcrium Reflect to recover a encrypted. The chances are that you're going to loose everything.
- As the second drive was encrypted using VeraCrypt on the fist one (that you don't have anymore), I would say that you have to encrypt the third drive (now with Windows) using VeraCrypt and then open the second drive with the backup key you created when you encrypted the fist drive.
- Don't you have support from VeraCrypt to help you?
- VeraCrypt - Free Open source disk encryption with strong security for the Paranoid
- VeraCrypt - Free Open source disk encryption with strong security for the Paranoid

 

[dictum9]

It's a vera crypt thing mostly. I mounted the volume in VeraCrypt however unable to read it or anything. Attempt to restore the bootsector.

MiniPartition Wizard Pro did not detect any bad partitions, which still raises the question how come Windows 7 does not see the drive?

 

[dictum9]

How do I get the operating system to recognize the disk without formatting it?

 

[dictum9]

I tried partition recovery program like MiniTool Partition Wizard to no avail. It seems to find all the partitions but I cannot see the disk anyway.

 

[dictum9]

I may need to recreate the partition from scratch. Is there a way of doing that?

 

[Megahertz07]

I don't think you realized your problem began with a healthy drive with encrypted data on it but without a key.
Now you are trying to change the disk parameters to recover your data. If you succeed, you will end again with a encrypted data on the disk but without a key. There is no way to change the disk parameters to direct recover your data (decryption).