"Access denied by operating system" then BSOD, now estimate is 3 days to encrypt

[Anonymous]

Hi
I'm trying to use to VeraCrypt on my X220T. It is running Windows 7 Pro x64 and has a Mushkin 240GiB mSATA SSD.

I am using a 'strong' password ~25chars, and then default options elsewhere. I am only trying to encrypt the partition that Windows is running on.

The first attempt resulted in an error message to the effect of "Access denied by operating system" and then there was a BSOD. I've restarted the encryption process, it has gone from 2 to 3 to 4 days.

I've just had an error about requiring writing zeros to the drive now. I'm starting to think there is a fault with the (new) SSD. I've not seen one fail like this before, it's usually all or nothing.

[Mounir IDRASSI]

Hi,

Can you please check Windows Event Viewer and look for entries under "Windows Log\System" or "Windows Logs\Application" that correspond to the time the errors and BSOD happens?

Indeed, when VeraCrypt asks to write zeros to the drive, it means that it detected unreadable sectors on the drive (damaged sectors that give read errors). There is definitely an issue with the drive or at least with its firmware.

One possibility is that there is an alignment issue with your partition or maybe the SSD has 4096 physical sector size and its firmware doesn't handle correctly 512-bytes read/write operations.

I'm attaching a small program that displays some technical information. Can you please run from a command prompt by typing: GetDriveSizeInfo.exe c:
and then post its output.

Hopefully with these elements we can understand better what's happening for your drive.

[Anonymous]

Output is as follows;

Get drive size and alignment information
Copyright Mounir IDRASSI (mounir@idrix.fr) 2015

Disk Free Space = 0000043501834240 Bytes
Disk Total Size = 0000104752738304 Bytes

Disk Number = 0
Disk Offset = 0000000105906176
Disk Length = 0000104752742400
Drive Serial = KM512091SA7snip
Logical sector size = 512
Physical sector size = 512
Byte offset for alignment = 0

and in the logs (not sure on timings of BSOD) I can see;

The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because of an IO failure on volume C:.

and

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort1.

and

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

I'm convinced the drive is faulty, it will be RMA'd.

[Mounir IDRASSI]

The output of GetDriveSizeInfo.exe shows that there is no alignment issues and that the drive uses the standard 512-bytes sector size. So, VeraCrypt should work properly.

The Windows logs clearly show that there is an hardware issue with your drive, either the drive itself or the its controller. On remark though: the SSD seems to be connected using IDE which is no usual since IDE connectors offer low speed. Definitely, an SSD should be connected through SATA. Maybe there is an impatibily between the SSD and IDE.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I was confused by that. The SSD is in an mSATA on the motherboard - so it can't be cabled incorrectly. All BIOS options check out as well.

[Anonymous]

I have replaced the drive, changed nothing else. Reinstalled Windows, re-ran Veracrypt and it is working perfectly.

The issue was clearly a drive fault, not an issue with Veracrypt. Thanks for helping debug :)