I have a hard drive (HD not SSD) which has a partition that is encrypted by VeraCrypt. I have noticed that one of the files on that encrypted partition is corrupted and unreadable. In order to recover that file, should I run Spinrite 6.1 on the drive with that partition encrypted or or unencrypted? I know that Spinrite is not file-recovery software, but maybe it could fix a bad sector and restore the file that way.
How to run Spinrite 6.1 on an encrypted drive?
- Thread starter SillyConVal
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BootAble – FreeDOS boot testing freeware
To obtain direct, low-level access to a system's mass storage drives, SpinRite runs under a GRC-customized version of FreeDOS which has been modified to add compatibility with all file systems. In order to run SpinRite it must first be possible to boot FreeDOS.
GRC's “BootAble” freeware allows anyone to easily create BIOS-bootable media in order to workout and confirm the details of getting a machine to boot FreeDOS through a BIOS. Once the means of doing that has been determined, the media created by SpinRite can be booted and run in the same way.
The participants here, who have taken the time to share their knowledge and experience, their successes and some frustrations with booting their computers into FreeDOS, have created a valuable knowledgebase which will benefit everyone who follows.
You may click on the image to the right to obtain your own copy of BootAble. Then use the knowledge and experience documented here to boot your computer(s) into FreeDOS. And please do not hesitate to ask questions – nowhere else can better answers be found.
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Unfortunately you should ignore Dan's advice. SpinRite 6.1 does NOT in any way, care about the content on the drive, nor the file system, nor the partition table. You can run SpinRite on the drive and if it can recover the corruption using DynaStat, it will. Unless SpinRite can recover the corrupt sectors, you will NOT be able to recover the file. If DynaStat can't recover the data, it will end up writing whatever data it could confidently recover back, or it will end up blanking the sector if no recovery is reliable. Due to the way that the encryption works, even a single bad bit in a sector is going to completely kill that entire sector's data.
My response was based on the following post:
Did I read it wrong?
Did I read it wrong?
Different kind of encryption. Some drives have it built in, and behave differently than drives without it. However, in this case, the OP specifically said they were using software:
So that is not the same tech as the drive self-encrypting firmware.
The drive is a 4TB Western Digital "WD Gold" model WD4003FRYZ. This drive also has an unencrypted partition, but the problematic file is on the encrypted partition. I forgot to mention this file is also further encrypted by VeraCrypt. The actual problem I am having is that I can not unencrypt this file with its password. Other encrypted files in the same folder can still be unencrypted okay. This particular file is not as important as my need to figure out how to fix this problem, because other more important files could be affected by this same problem.
That said, I'd personally avoid doing anything that could potentially make things worse. The best course of action is to clone the drive with a free program like ddrescue or hdd superclone that keeps a log of bad sectors, works around them to get the good sectors first and then goes back to dig out as much as it can from the damaged sectors. You can keep tweaking the settings on how to read the bad blocks in hopes to find a method that get them cleanly. And, at the very least, this gets you the best possible backup copy of your drive, with the least amount of risk of losing it all.
Ah . . .Got it! Thank you! Good to know.
Hopefully, SpinRiting the problem spot as is will help.
Don't forget to turn DynaStat partial
recovery OFF using the
command if the data is important to have a
chance to try, try, try again later using any
number of attempted recovery methods:
recovery OFF using the
NOREWRITEcommand if the data is important to have a
chance to try, try, try again later using any
number of attempted recovery methods:
SPINRITE NORAMTEST LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 1 NOREWRITE
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@SillyConVal : Paul Holder is correct, as DanR now understands. (And “Hi!” Lee. Greg forwarded your question to me which brought me over here. 
SpinRite has NO PROBLEM running on drives that have been encrypted with VeraCrypt, TrueCrypt, Bitlocker, or another other form of encryption. And unfortunately Paul is also right that encryption does also make a block's data more "fragile" than it would otherwise be, in that its successful decryption will tend to be an “all or nothing” outcome.
But in any event, SpinRite remains your best bet and you should be able to confidently run it on that encrypted drive.
SpinRite has NO PROBLEM running on drives that have been encrypted with VeraCrypt, TrueCrypt, Bitlocker, or another other form of encryption. And unfortunately Paul is also right that encryption does also make a block's data more "fragile" than it would otherwise be, in that its successful decryption will tend to be an “all or nothing” outcome.
But in any event, SpinRite remains your best bet and you should be able to confidently run it on that encrypted drive.
Yes, I do have a copy of the encrypted partition. However, on that copy of the encrypted partition, the file in question is an exact copy of the original file and is therefor also corrupted.
I found a good copy of that corrupted file on an older hard drive that I used for backups several years ago, so I do not now have an immediate need to run SpinRite on that encrypted partition. If anyone does run SpinRite on an encrypted partition, I hope they will post the results here.
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