mkfs.ext4: Eingabe-/Ausgabefehler while writing out and closing file system
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Hi every one,
I try, on a brand new USB 8 TByte drive, to create a encrypted volume,
but it fails every time with the following error message:
mkfs.ext4: Input-/Output error while writing out and closing file system
After that the device has disappeared and I have to reboot my PC (Ubuntu
24.04) to see the device again. Unplug it and plug it in again doesn't help.
Creating a ext4 files system on the non encrypted device is no problem.
I am grateful for any advice.
I have the same problem. I'm using Veracrypt 1.26.18. I tried both quick and full format. Creating encrypted partitions with ext4 file systems appears to be broken in this version.
However, I have found a workaround: using an ext3 file system works. It's not ideal but for now it will serve me.
I'm using the GUI version because of its option to use random mouse movements for stronger cryptographic security; no idea how to do that with the command line version.
Also, I have noticed that since support for legacy Truecrypt volumes was dropped, VC can no longer read volumes that were originally created in TrueCrypt and then converted to VeraCrypt volumes. I had to dig up an old 1.25.4 command line version to access my data again. (Which is why I tried to create a new VC partition on my backup USB disk and ran into the above error).
Update: ticket filed. (https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/tickets/588/)
Last edit: Frank van Wensveen 2025-02-11
@frankvw110467
Incorrect. You probably did not notice that your TC volume was using HMAC-RIPEMD-160 Hash Algorithm. Users on the forum reported successfully converting their TC volumes to VC using the documentation. See link below.
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Conversion_Guide_VeraCrypt_1.26_and_Later.html
If the volume that was converted from TC to VC still used the HMAC-RIPEMD-160 Hash Algorithm that (as per the documentation you refer to) is no longer supported, to me (seen from a UX standpoint) that amounts to "VC can no longer read volumes that were originally created in TrueCrypt and then converted to VeraCrypt volumes." Correct or incorrect, that's what it boils down to: the lastest version of VC can't read/mount old volumes that have been converted from TC to VC by an older version of VC. Whether it's the support for the old hash algorithm or something else makes little difference; my experience as a user is that "it no longer works".
I solved the problem by using a 1.25.9 command line version (manually extracted from a .deb downloaded from SourceForge) to mount the volume, extracting the data to another disk and then creating a new VC volume (thus running into problem that VC 1.26.18 has with partitions fitted with an ext4 file system).
I didn't read the documentation, not having needed it since I started using TC) but from what I see after having followed your link I only could at best saved myself some time by changing the hash algoritm instead of moving the data out of the way and recreating the volume from scratch. So in the end the essence and bulk of my approach was much like what the dcumentation suggests, which is heartening.
OK, I could have saved myself the hassle of moving the data and creating a new volume. OTOH, the old volume was still NTFS (dating back 15 years or so) and that's always been a bit of a PITA on Linux, so upgrading it to ext3 (since ext4 doesn't work) was not a bad thing.