VeraCrypt drive keeps being doubled with 2 letters, same letter always unavailable

[Phil G]

Hi!

Sorry if this topic has already been discussed or if this is the wrong place to post...

I have several external USB drives in a USB 8-bay docking station. Whenever I mount the first of these disks in VeraCrypt, it keeps showing this disk "doubled", with the letter I chose + the letter M, which seems to be stuck on replicating the first disk I mount, regardless of which disk I choose, which letter I choose, or what order they are plugged in the docking station.

Here is an example:

• I choose ANY of my disks and I plug it into ANY bay in my docking station.
• In VeraCrypt, I mount this disk with the letter K
• After mounting process finishes, Windows shows me the same disk twice, under both letters K and M

Other information:

• It is always letter M that replicates whatever disk I plug first (like if letter M was "stuck")
• I deleted ALL my external USB favorite volumes, just in case this created a conflict
• I rebooted
• I still have system favorite volumes, but those are internal / SATA

Please help me on getting rid of this "ghost" M disk.

Thanks!

[Enigma2Illusion]

Upgrade to latest version of VeraCrypt and reboot PC.

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With all VeraCrypt volumes dismounted, open command line as Administrator and issue the following command:

mountvol /R

This should have cleared the drive mappings after another PC reboot to remove the double drive letter mapping.

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If the above fails, perform the following with all VeraCrypt volumes dismounted:

Using a modified version of Idrassi's instructions:

Check the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices" using regedit as administrator. Scroll down and you'll find entries starting with "\DosDevices\" which indicate the drive letters that are taken by the system. Before mounting any volume, double click on each one and remove the ones contains the name "VeraCrypt" or "TrueCrypt".
Also, there are other entries whose name start with "#{" and "\??\Volume{": double click on each one of them and remove the ones whose data value contains the name "VeraCrypt" or "TrueCrypt".

Reboot PC.

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If all the above fails to remove the double drive letter assignment, use the DriveCleanup utility below to remove all currently non present USB Storage Devices, Disks, CDROMs, Floppies, Storage Volumes and WPD devices from the device tree. Furthermore it removes orphaned registry items related to these device types.

• Create a directory and unzip the files into the directory.
• Start a command line prompt as Administrator.
• In the command window, change into the directory where you unzipped the files. If you are using 64-bit Windows OS, change into x64 subdirectory.
• Dismount all VeraCrypt volumes.

.
Use the following command to see what the DriveCleanup utility will remove from the registry:
drivecleanup -T

To remove items from the registry:

drivecleanup

Reboot PC after running utility.

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/drivetools_e.html
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/drivecleanup.zip

[Phil G]

Hi,

Thanks for fast answer!

With all VeraCrypt volumes dismounted, open...

All my volumes are encrypted with VeraCrypt, including my OS volume... Does this mean I have to unencrypt it before following your procedures, or is it ok if I dismount all volumes except the OS volume?

Thanks!

[Enigma2Illusion]

Hello,

The above procedures will have no impact on the system encryption of the C drive. Therefore, you do not need to decrypt the C drive.

If possible, unmount the other VeraCrypt volumes.

[Phil G]

Hi,

Sorry about late response... In the meantime since the last time we posted on this topic, my C drive died and I had to rebuild all my system... So I did not have the chance to test any of the solutions above.

Anyways, thanks for answer and I hope this topic can help someone else.

Thanks!