usb flash drive - Can I format a truecrypt encrypted stick?

08
2014-07
  • Questioner

    EDIT (PROBLEM SOLVED):

    Sorry for the waste of ones and zeros, but it turns out a simple stick unplugging did the trick. After unplugging the stick and then plugging it back again the usual formatting via the disk manager works just fine.

    QUESTION

    I had a truecrypt encrypted usb stick which I wanted to remove encryption from, delete everything on, and use as a simple non-encryped stick. I plugged the stick in and got the usual You need to format the disk in drive G: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?. Dummy me figured, hey, I want to get rid of everything so I might as well format it now. I clicked OK.

    Needless to say the format didn't actually work as expected - it didn't format the whole thing, just some 64mb out of 8gb - and not only that but now I cannot decrypt the usb via truecrypt either. I suspect the format corrupted some stuff.

    So to recap, I cannot format the usb stick via right click > format in windows, nor can I access it via truecrypt anymore (nor can I format it using the disk manager - neither fat nor ntfs, neither quick nor not quick - I get an error message telling me the format did not complete successfully). I don't care about any of the files on the stick. I just want my 8gb back. Is there any way I can get that?

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    Related Question

    Is TrueCrypt robust against data corruption?
  • Dimitri C.

    I would expect a TrueCrypt volume to be fragile when it suffers from data corruption. This could happen for example because the hard disk, CD or DVD start to deteriorate, or when an USB stick is unplugged while a write is in progress.

    On the TrueCrypt FAQ it is mentioned that this problem is limited because the data is encrypted in blocks of 16 bytes. However, I'dd like to know if this really so in practice. Is there anyone who has experienced severe data loss due to only small corruptions?


    • Related Answers
  • Dennis Williamson

    Encrypted backups do have their drawbacks, in case the the backup media becomes corrupted you may lose everything whereas chances are much better to retrieve unencrypted backups (at least partially) from a damaged disk.

    In any case, only one set of backups is insufficient. And if applicable, maintain an unencrypted backup in a safe location (e.g. a bank vault). Security comes at a price.

  • nik
    • For removable devices refer to this question
    • Backups and redundancy (the RAID kind) are important
      • For optical media, move the data to new media every few years
        alternatively, stop using optical media and shift to newer forms of backup
        (yes, that too is your question)
    • If you do hit a corruption later, check the recovery methods for your media
      Look at the next point in TrueCrypt FAQ,
      What do I do when the encrypted filesystem on my TrueCrypt volume is corrupted?

    File system within a TrueCrypt volume may become corrupted in the same way as any normal unencrypted file system. When that happens, you can use filesystem repair tools supplied with your operating system to fix it. In Windows, it is the 'chkdsk' tool. TrueCrypt provides an easy way to use this tool on a TrueCrypt volume: Right-click the mounted volume in the main TrueCrypt window (in the drive list) and from the context menu select 'Repair Filesystem'.

  • emgee

    I've lost 500GB of data that was device encrypted. I tried eveything, chkdsk is usesless when you can't mount the disk.

  • Edwin Yip

    I think TrueCrypt is very robust itself, I've been using it for over 4 years and haven't had a problem. But as others commented, you should take care of the backup, I suggest to use file-based volumes because you can easily backup the whole volume as opposed to partition-based volumes.

  • 8088

    I lost 300GB of data due to my volume header becoming corrupted by Windows. I had my entire system encrypted (boot partition and drives) and attempted to use the various repair features and decryption to no avail.

    I would recommend only creating a TruCrypted partition and storing data there that you wouldn't mind losing for the benefit of the security it provides.

  • user10547

    It's pretty good I have it running on a thumb drive that takes a lot of abuse and keeps on ticking. Of course always back up your data on site and off using something like Amazon S3/Mozy/etc. RAID is nice for hard drive failure but not for back ups.