[Help request] How do I display volumes as numbers instead of letters?

[Myrano]

Hello,
I have been using VeraCrypt for a while, but I recently switched laptops and therefore had to reinstall the latest version of the VeraCrypt software on my computer. For your information, I was previously on Fedora Workstation 38 and I am now on Windows 11.

Unfortunately, I can no longer decrypt the files stored on my external hard drive. The VeraCrypt interface is not the same as the one I was familiar with, and the volume names are different. Before, the volume names were numbers and could therefore go beyond 26, whereas they are now letters. For example, I have an encrypted file that used volume 27 and therefore does not have a letter assigned to it. Would anyone know what I need to do to get the volumes back in number format, please?

[Mounir IDRASSI]

Hello,

The slot number 27 is not the real issue here. On Linux, VeraCrypt uses numeric mount slots, while on Windows it uses drive letters. The encrypted file container itself is not tied to slot 27.

Since you were using Fedora before, the quickest way to access your data on Windows 11 may be to use Fedora under WSL: this avoids possible filesystem compatibility issues if the filesystem inside the VeraCrypt container is Linux specific like ext4.

On Windows 11, open PowerShell and install Fedora under WSL, for example:

wsl --install FedoraLinux-43

After Fedora is installed and your Linux user is configured, start Fedora ("wsl -d FedoraLinux-43") and install VeraCrypt inside it:

wget https://launchpad.net/veracrypt/trunk/1.26.24/+download/veracrypt-1.26.24-Fedora-40-x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install ./veracrypt-1.26.24-Fedora-40-x86_64.rpm fuse-libs
mkdir -p $HOME/.config

Then start VeraCrypt from Fedora:

veracrypt

From the VeraCrypt Linux interface, use Select File and choose your file container. You can either copy the container into the Fedora WSL filesystem from Windows Explorer using:

\\wsl.localhost\FedoraLinux-43

or you can access your Windows drives from inside Fedora under /mnt. For example, if your container is in D:\Data, browse to:

/mnt/d/Data

This should let you continue using the usual Linux VeraCrypt interface and mount the container with a numeric slot as before. If you still get an error when mounting, please post the exact VeraCrypt error message.

[Myrano]

Thank you very much for this information. I successfully installed the Fedora version of VeraCrypt and the software is working well. I also managed to select the file I wanted to decrypt, but an error message appeared. Here it is attached.
Could you please let me know what I should do to resolve this issue?

[Mounir IDRASSI]

You can make the mounted volume open in Windows Explorer by installing xdg-utils package:

sudo dnf install xdg-utils

This is the simplest approach since it will allow you to easily access data stored in the VeraCrypt volume from Windows.

Only thing is that you will still get the warning message from VeraCrypt despite your volume being successfully opened in Explorer. You can simply ignore this warning and click Ok.

I will fix this warning when opening is actually working in the new VeraCrypt version.

[Myrano]

Good evening,
Thank you very much for your help, I successfully decrypted my SSD. Thanks also for your admirable work on VeraCrypt.
Good luck with the rest of the project!

[Mounir IDRASSI]

Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad I could help.

Also, thanks to your report, I have implemented a change in VeraCrypt to better integrate with Windows WSL without the need of installing xdg-utils: https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/code/ci/2fef93e1c64d02540cdae51114d9310f1e55a643/

This enhancement will land in the next VeraCrypt version.