Possible bug on usb volumes?

[tinchote]

I've had this happen before with TrueCrypt, and now with VeraCrypt. I have
a usb external drive, fully encrypted. A few times, after a disconnection
(for instance, a power outage where the UPS kept the computer running but
the usb drive was down) the drive shows on Windows, the folder structure
can be navigated, but trying to open any file gives an error. Chkdsk
reports the volume as RAW. Turning the drive off and on again does not
solve the problem. What solves the problem is dismounting and
re-mounting on VeraCrypt.

Could this be a bug?

Thanks,

Martin

[RealTehreal]

It's common sense that chkdsk would see the drive as RAW, as it's encrypted. The mounted volume should be seen as the filesystem in use, except, it's utterly damaged.

Regarding the fact, that you have to remount the volume if the containing drive disconnects: There could maybe be some kind of OS dependent mechanic which prevents VeraCrypt from automagically reconnect to a lost handle (to the drive). The need of doing a manual remount should be desirable anyway. Reason: If I mounted a volume from a USB drive and accidentally removed it and inserted another, not encrypted USB drive, it would be fatal if VeraCrypt assumed that this was the initial encrypted USB drive and destroyed the filesystem by accessing it.

What you should do is to prevent your system from shutting down the USB port in case of an outage. Even if VeraCrypt was not involved, this could in any case lead to a corrupted filesystem. Or at least create a routine which unmounts the VeraCrypt volume before shutting down the drive.

[tinchote]

Thanks for your answer. Chkdsk sees the disk perfectly and not as RAW; in fact, one can call chkdsk by right-clicking on VeraCrypt itself. It is not normal for chkdsk to see the disk as RAW.

I'll try to see if I can implement what you say. In any case, when this happens, VeraCrypt is not reporting any kind of problem, and meanwhile Windows gives all kind of errors, failing to write to the MFT, and the drive is visible, the folders can be openened, but errors arise when one attempts to open a file. This clogs the log files, and makes it hard for the use to determine what the problem is.

[RealTehreal]

I cannot completely follow your remarks.

Chkdsk reports the volume as RAW.

That's what you initially reported. Now you wrote "Chkdsk sees the disk perfectly and not as RAW". So, what's the case?

one can call chkdsk by right-clicking on VeraCrypt itself

I cannot follow up. What exactly do you right click onto? The mounted volume shown in Windows's drives list? After the drive reconnected? If that's the case, it's expected to be shown as RAW as VC seems to have lost it's valid handle to the encrypted drive because it got disconnected.

I agree that VeraCrypt should raise some kind of error and dismount if the connection to the encrypted volume is lost. Maybe a dev should take a hand on this. Maybe it made sense to open a ticket.

[tinchote]

We misunderstood each other. When you said that it was natural for the volume to be seen as RAW, I thought you were talking in general, and not about the mis-connected one.

We do agree in everything. Can I open a ticket, or is one expected for the devs to follow up from this?

[RealTehreal]

I'm just your random VC fellow who tries to help other VC users. So I think you should open a ticket to get a dev's attention. Shouldn't be a bad idea to add a link to this topic, though.

Greets