Chkdsk cannot continue in write protected mode
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Second time I get this now.
After an unclean shutdown, I right-click the Veracrypt drive and Check File system. Then I get the following message:
"Chkdsk found errors and cannot continue in write protected mode. Press any key to continue..."
Then right-click and Repair File system:
"An unspecified error has occurred (766f6c756d652e63 3f1). Press any key to continue..."
According to MS:
I guess Safe Mode for disabling third-party apps is a catch 22, since VeraCrypt that's needed for disk access also seems to be the problem. Is there a way to fix the disks without another week of RAID reinitializion and wasted electricity?
(Edit: missed to correct the title, sorry)
Last edit: Hans Forsgren 2021-03-04
I've now tried:
Closing the VeraCrypt window after chkdsk launch - no difference
Upgrading VeraCrypt Update 6 to Update 7 - no difference
Restarting PC in fail-safe mode - "Error: VeraCrypt driver not found."
Closing VeraCrypt window, running cmd as admin, and ending VeraCrypt task for all users - no difference
Closing VeraCrypt window, running cmd as admin, and ending VeraCrypt tree for all users - no difference
These HDD's are synced with an external HDD using FreeFileSync. The external HDD has the exact same information and no errors. The RAID setup, however, says "rebuild" upon system restart.
Could simultaneous RAID rebuild be the cause of trouble here?
The PC in question runs Windows 7 x64, fully updated.
Last edit: Hans Forsgren 2021-03-05
I have the exact same problem also running Windows 7 x64 but hasn't been updated since 2017 but I'm not using a RAID, just a normal external HDD fully encrypted with VeraCrypt. Google gives me zero results other than other people having the same or similar problem with very few finding a solution and I made a topic weeks ago and I still haven't gotten a reply. Your topic basically saved me from wasting my time going into safe mode so at least you helped someone.
Looking at the old topics of people who have/has this issue and it looks like its been an issue for years. I guess the best option is to just never use VeraCrypt and look for something else.
I'm not a Windows user so please keep that in mind if you think, I'm asking questions about things that seem clear to you.
If I get you right, you have an external (USB?) drive connected to your machine. The whole drive is an encrypted volume.
Greets
I have one 3TB external HDD that's fully encrypted with VeraCrypt no hidden volumes. Basically on a laptop I accidentally bumped the drive a tiny bit and it disconnected and dismounted the drive while I still had programs running. I then remounted the drive through VeraCrypt and got an error stating that it wasn't probably dismounted
And then asks me if I want Windows to attempt to detect and fix errors. I went ahead and it started listed a long list of log listing errors but I'm not sure it did anything but it was going to fast I couldn't tell if it did anything. So I waited several minutes for it to be done and when it finally finished I tried to make sure everything is alright on the external HDD. The files all seemed to be there so far. I was able to open and view some images. I even ran one of the programs I had on it that was still running right before the drive disconnected. It ran fine for a bit but when I tried to make changes, it would freeze then crash. I then learned that anything I do when it comes to editing files or writing to the drive won't work. I can't make new folders or edited any of my files but I can view and run them just fine.
So I eventually dismounted the drive the normal way and tried again however I still get this error every time I mount the drive. So this time I chose "No" on letting Windows attempt to detect and fix errors and I got another error message, this time from Windows(Not VeraCrypt giving me the message ) asking if I want to Scan and fix or continue without scanning. Doing this just gives me an error saying a program is in use which is probably VeraCrypt itself since there's nothing running
From here I basically did what the opening poster did. Right clicked on the mounted drive in VeraCrypt and selected "Check File system" and would get this error
I went through many of VeraCrypt's options and nothing says this drive is in read-only mode. I even used diskpart in the command prompt to check the details of the drive when mounted and it showed the drive as fine.
So just like the opening poster, I went ahead and right-clicked Repair File system and got the same error as the opening poster
Looking up that error code was basically what the opening poster just posted about trying it in safe mode which they already mentioned the results.
And it just does end here. I have a backup external HDD that's 5TB(backup for my back up) and its also fully encrypted with VeraCrypt. I ended up tapping the cable by mistake trying to adjust my laptop and just wouldn't you know, the SAME exact thing happened to my 5TB drive. So not only do I have 2 messed up drives, I was able to recreate the issue.
Alright, now I see where you're coming from.
First of all regarding the filesystem: exFAT is not known to be a robust filesystem and I can only recommend on using something else as far as it's not absolutely necessary for whatever reason. This would be the reason why checkdisk detects errors within the filesystem and Windows prevents you writing more data into the damaged filesystem. And that's the reason why VeraCrypt tells you that the volume is not mounted read-only but you still can't write data to it.
I suggeset to never use any kind of FAT filesystem for data, you are afraid of getting lost.
Second, the VeraCrypt driver should only provide a transparent layer for accessing the encrypted filesystem. So there should be no process regarding VeraCrypt somehow accessing the mounted drive and blocking it. This would only leave some Windows process accessing the drive (maybe for indexing reasons). But that's just an assumption.
Now to what I would do from there on (please read on carefully and see if it suits you): I would create a sector based backup of the whole encrypted drive (not the unencrypted volume) and after this leave the original drive alone to prevent any further damage and work only on the backup.
Then restart into fail-safe mode, run VeraCrypt portable and mount the backed up volume - don't know if this would work, it's just an idea. Then run chkdsk again and try to repair the filesystem (I'm not sure if you have to set a parameter so chkdsk would actually write-access the filesystem and repair it for real). Anyways, I would stick to the cmd version of chkdsk, but I don't know if there's any difference. If this still won't work, remove the drive letter of the mounted volume and try again (this should prevent any process from accessing the drive as there's no drive letter to address it). If it worked (or not) create a new volume with a robust filesystem and copy as much data as possible from the (repaired) volume. If feasible, do a bitwise comparison of the copied data and the backup from the other drive to see if there are differences. If there are differences, manually check which file is less/not damaged and transfer it to the new volume. Lastly, I would also compare the new volume's files with the original damaged one to look up any more differences and manually decide which file is better to be kept.
Hope, this helps out somehow.
Greets
Thanks, I honestly don't remember selecting which format I use when encrypting my drives with VeraCrypt or maybe I did and just thought exFAT was some sort of new format. I managed to order another drive that came in a few days ago, a 4TB external drive that isn't encrypted. I already used this to back up everything from the 3TB drive over to the 4TB drive so all my files are safe and working right now. I used a small program called FastCopy since it has an option to check if the files copied over with no issue.
I'm having a bit of a problem following the rest of your post though. What do you mean by "sector based backup" and when you say fail-safe mode are you talking about Windows Safe mode? I'm also confused on which drive you're referring to so I'm just going to list what I have right now just to make things clear :
-3TB external formatted to exFAT fully encrypted with VeraCrypt = can't write to it or use Chkdsk
-5TB external formatted to exFAT fully encrypted with VeraCrypt = can't write to it or use Chkdsk
-4TB external formatted to NTFS NOT encrypted with VeraCrypt = backed up everything on the 3TB
If you already copied all files from the 3TB drive to the 4TB drive, you can ignore most of my post here.
you should now still compare the files of the 4TB drive with the files on the 5TB drive.
sector based backup: https://www.smartdeploy.com/blog/the-difference-between-file-based-and-sector-based-imaging/
Windows safe mode: this would be what I was talking about.
You could give VC another try but I would not use exFAT if there is a chance for unproper drive disconnection.
Greets
Just like the opening poster, I can't use VeraCrypt in safe mode. All the non core drivers are disabled when in Safe mode. I even went and confirmed this.
So if I can't run VeraCrypt then I can't use Chkdsk.
Last edit: James 2021-07-22
Starting with Windows 10 1809 version, the default mount policy is Quick Removal.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/change-default-removal-policy-external-storage-media
You should set your Windows 7 policy to Quick Removal.
I just checked, drives were already in Quick Removal.