Full drive encrypted can be mounted but very slowly, files are inaccessible...
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I have an encrypted non-system drive, quite new (an external USB WD
MyPassport). All of a sudden, when I connect it to the PC, Windows does not
warn me anymore with the usual "You need to format the disk in drive D:
before you can use it".
Nevertheless, after about 30 seconds of wait, I see the drive appear in
"This PC" with a new drive letter assigned, and then I can "select the
device" in Veracrypt (but it takes minutes of wait before the selection is
completed) and mount it in Veracrypt entering the password (several other
minutes of wait).
When the drive mount is completed, I can see the main folder of the drive
but, again, browsing the folders is veeery slow and the copy & paste of the
files out of this drive is impossible because it times out...
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
You need to use Windows Disk Manager to remove the OS assigned drive letter when you first connect the external drive but before you mount the drive in VeraCrypt. You should only need to perform this once on each PC where you connect the external drive.
The slowness may be due to your antivirus/malware software is scanning the drive before you mount it in VeraCrypt.
I've been using this disk for more than one year, why should I change the drive letter? Windows has always assigned this drive a letter: now it is not warning me that "I must format it before using it" anymore, but the letter has been assigned like it was in the past...
Moreover, I've tried to attach to another PC: same result, unfortunately
With Windows drive letter assigned, the Windows OS may try to be "helpful" by performing a quick format of the VeraCrypt drive/partition since Windows does not recognize the filesystem of the encrypted volume and this will damage your VeraCrypt volume.
If any antivirus/malware is scanning the encrypted drive assigned drive letter by Windows, it may think some of the encryption on the drive is a virus or malware and sanitize it which will destroy your volume data.
At the time of mounting and the slow copy of files, check the event logs (Event Viewer) in Windows looking for errors of the VeraCrypt volume around the time the issue(s) are occurring.