Issue creating NTFS/exFAT on Windows 10

[Mark Keisling Jr.]

Having an issue on a particular Windows 10 machine. I have 2 Windows 10 machines, both updated and running the same version of Windows 10.
Platform ServicePack Version VersionString
-------- ----------- ------- -------------
Win32NT 10.0.17763.0 Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.17763.0

Volume creation works fine on one, but not on the other.

On the one with an issue:
Creating a Standard VeraCrypt Volume with AES encryption SHA-512 with a password or keyfile with NTFS/exFat I receive the following error:

Windows failed to format the volume as NTFS/exFAT/ReFS.
Do you want to format the volume as FAT instead?

I am able to creat with FAT. I've tried various sizes, most recent tests I've just been doing 25MB just so that it creates fast to see if I hit the error.

I originally tried the newest version 1.23 HF2; however, I've also downgraded and tried 1.23, 1.19, 1.22, all with the same error on this machine.

Is there a way to enable higher logging for VeraCrypt to get more information on this issue?
I don't see any logs in the VeraCrypt directory, and doesn't see anything relevant in the Windows Event Log.
Don't see anything in %USERPROFILE%\AppData that is relevant.

I have Windows Defender Controlled Folder Access enabled, but I'm not trying to create in a protected Directory. I've also tried adding VeraCrypt EXE to allowed Executables and it still had the issue.
Also don't see anything in the Defender Event Logs that it's blocking VeraCrypt, as I'd normally expect if that were the issue.

I had Version 1.17 and/or 1.19 on my computer at one point a couple years ago, although I haven't used them in quite a while. But I was able to create a volume back then. Obviously machine has had plenty of MS patches since then, but it has worked on this machine at one time in the past.

I created a Volume on my machine that is working and then transferred it to my machine that isn't able to create volumes, and it was able to Mount it.
I can even create a Volume from my machine that is working on a UNC path drive of my machine that isn't working \notworkingmachine\C$\VCvolumeremote for example.
Although I just tested that for 25MB file, I suspect larger files will take quite a performance hit over the network. However, it is a work-around...

Would greatly appreciate any suggestions on where to look next.

Thank you

[John Doe 2]

I encountered the same problem, "Windows failed to format the volume as NTFS/exFAT/ReFS. Do you want to format the volume as FAT instead?" Eventually for the sake of it, I accepted FAT just to see how far it would take me. It finished creating the encrypted container. I was also able to mount it, but!!!!

When I tried to access this mounted volume, Windows complained NOT accessible! But now I had new keywords, "not accessible", to take me further. Using the following key words, "veracrypt windows 10 not accessible", the first result, https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thread/1773852b/?limit=25, has the answer!

Bottom line, go to your "\Windows\System32\drivers" directory, delete or rename applehfs.sys and then reboot.

[infodan36]

Hello

Same problem here,

This time I used Windows PE prebuilt live DVD based on Windows 10 :

Medicat
Malekal

To perform the test, I used Quick Format (but this it is not the root cause,....
=> and only as because it was faster to check the result here )

the result, when trying to encrypt a whole WD 2 TO my passport essential drive, is

Windows failed to format the volume as NTFS/exFAT/ReFS.
Do you want to format the volume as FAT instead?

FAT on the other hand works OK and encypted the whole system

I would need NTFS because I have files bigger than 4 GB and EXFAT it not that reliable.....

I try this operation on Linux Mint 19.2 and NTFS worked well, 2 TO encrypted ok !!

I hesitate to do this operation on Linux as I am not sure that NTFS will be as reliable, when built on Linux system ???

If you can confirm to me NTFS will WORK no matter,
if built on Windows or Linux, then I will be just fine..

thanks a lot

[Mounir IDRASSI]

In order to perform NTFS formatting, VeraCrypt requires administrative privileges in order to call a specific Windows system function so it is possible that on the machine where this failures happen, VeraCrypt is unable to get these privileges or that some security policy doesn't allow it to get them.

That being said, there is an easy solution for workaround this problem:

• First, when create the volume, select None as filesystem.
• After the volume is created, mount it in VeraCrypt into a given driver letter (for example X:)
• After the volume is mounted, double-click on the mounted volume drive letter (e.g. X:) in VeraCrypt UI or try to access the mounted volume driver letter (e.g. X:) in Explorer
• In both cases, Windows will ask you if you want to format it. Answer yes and then in the Format dialog, you can select NTFS.

This approach is safer than performing NTFS formatting on Linux although I have never encountered an issue with NTFS volumes created on Linux when used on Windows.

[infodan36]

Thanks a lot Mounir !
I was not aware of this trick !

Previously I used 1.23 with UBCD (ultra boot CD 32) or Malekal WinPE 7 or Falcon CD, all were 32 bits based and there was not such problem, it seems to be linked to Win10 and PE built on it.

So I tried to encrypt a Whole external HDD with None allocation table, and that worked,
I formatted then the allocation table into NTFS thereafter (after building the partition encryption), I was not aware I could do this, so fine.

Then I built a 5 GB container within the previous created partition using the same trick and built NTFS thereafter, that worked too

Most important, I mounted the whole thing on Linux Mint, and that worked fine,

I guess NTFS-3G will allow me to add data on Linux and then read/write them on Windows.