Truecrypt cannot shrink the filesystem

As advised in some of my previous threads I moved win 7 boot files inside the windows partition before i reencrypted. I have 2 partitions on the drive 1 is win7 the other is data. Windows boots fine however I can't encrypt the the data partition, I get the following message: error: cannot shrink the filesystem (the file system needs to be shrunk to make room for the system header and the backup header). There is plenty of free space (many GBs) on the 2 partitions. Anyone know how I can encrypt the data partition?

 

Bump.

 

When you bring up the TC control panel can you select the second partition as a device based volume candidate? Then can you even start the process of creating a volume? As a trial will TC allow you to create a small "testing only here" file based volume on that partition?

Is the data partition a normal windows filesystem? Likely NTFS but Fat32 would be fine as well. Have you tried using Windows to verify the data partition's filesystem/drive sectors are OK? Drive letter - Properties - Tools - check disk looking for any repairs needed.

How much data is on that drive (rhetorical question)? Depending upon your answer, it might pay to move the data to elsewhere and then reformat the partition so you have a clean slate.

Do you have your system disk actively "pointed" at the data partition? Not to be confusing, but is there something on the data partition that is necessary for windows to access for mounting the system disk? The answer likely will be no, but there are folks with exceptions for various reasons.

If you use check disk and windows shows all clean and "fixed" then TC should work on a 2 partition disk such as you described. If it doesn't consider re-doing the data partition as described above.


note: you mentioned that you moved the boot files - good idea. Have you gone into disk management and made absolutely certain that any "hidden" little partition has been deleted and the space recovered to one of the two partitions. Hopefully you will know what I mean about the hidden part. You likely read about it during the move process.

 

Partition 2 does not show up in the TC control panel (I assume you mean the main window). If I click "select device" I can choose it as partiton 2 of hardisk 0 but it does not show up in a slot. The path shows in the the box just above where it says "Never save history" I can go through the whole setup process on that partition after clicking "create new volume" from the volumes menu, but when it comes time to encrypt I get the error message. I should mention that I had both partitions encrypted as a system drive in one go, but I was advised to seperate them, so when decrypted I moved the boot files inside the system partion, then encrypted one partition at a time. Except that of course partition 2 wouldn't encrypt and I got that error message.

Partition 2 apears to be a windows partitons. It has a drive letter and shows NTFS healthy in Acronis Disk Director, but so does partition 1 which is the windows partition.

Partition 2 has a capacity of 168GB and has 58GB of data on it.

Not entirely sure, there are some sample libraries. One of these installs default to C: but I have moved it to partition 2. However that app, which needs this library, as far as I know only starts up when I click it, but not a 100% sure.

When I run chkdsk on the partition I do get the message "windows can't check the disk while it is in use.......Force dismount?" (chkdsk checks the partition and finds no errors) I think the above mentioned app has an authorization file that reside on partition 2, so that might be it. I have an encrypted backup disk that I could move the data on partition 2 to. Do you think I should do that, and reencrypt partiton 2 so that it overwrites what is there, then move everthing back from the backup drive? Will the authorization file still work after this move?

I'm sure the "hidden" little partition has been deleted and the space recovered to one of the two partitions.

 

From what you are saying I believe that I would move the data because its not that much (< 60 Gig). Then I would re-build the partition via reformatting it completely. Do a file system check after that and basically you are starting over then. 168 GB is only a few hours for encryption. Make sure to save a volume header backup for future recovery.

 

That did the trick, thanks for your help.

 

Nice. Another happy ending.

Further; you have likely saved yourself many future headaches by moving the boot files inside the system disk. That is especially true if you ever go the hidden OS route. Cheers!!