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I have enabled whole-drive encryption on my external drive to comply with my company's requirements about data security. I want to be able to make a backup of files on the drive, even while they're in use. Is there any program out there that uses Volume Shadow Copy for backup and also works with a TrueCrypt encrypted drive?

I have tried Windows Backup and Macrium Reflect and both act like the drive isn't connected, even though TrueCrypt has mounted it. It would be really nice if there was something that was free, but in order for that to work, it also has to work for commercial purposes since this is my company laptop I'm trying to backup.

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5 Answers 5

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While the TrueCrypt disk drive is mounted and is formatted with a file system, you should be able to use any disk-to-file backup product or disk-to-zip. There are many such products that use Volume Shadow Copy and can copy all files on the disk, some of which are:

FBackup
Cobian Backup
GFI Backup 2009 Home Edition

However, the best and the most complete is AOMEI Backupper, which can favorably compare with any other commercial product on the market.

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  • That did it, Acronis can do the backup. Thanks!
    – jasonh
    Jan 2, 2010 at 20:06
  • +1 for Cobian. Real old school actual functional program, not fancy interface dumb user "app"
    – br4nnigan
    Mar 19, 2021 at 23:12
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Unfortunately this is not possible. The Truecrypt website lists Volume Shadow Copy as a current limitation.

The Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service is currently supported only for partitions within the key scope of system encryption (for example, a system partition encrypted by TrueCrypt or a non-system partition located on a system drive encrypted by TrueCrypt). Note: For other types of volumes, the Volume Shadow Copy Service is not supported because the documentation for the necessary API is available from Microsoft only under a non-disclosure agreement (which is impossible to comply with because TrueCrypt is open source).

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    RCIX posted (and deleted) exactly the same answer last night :)
    – Molly7244
    Dec 27, 2009 at 17:47
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    I'm not trying to use VSC to back up a TrueCrypt encrypted volume, I'm trying to use VSC to back up a regular volume and store the backup on an encrypted volume. :)
    – jasonh
    Dec 27, 2009 at 18:53
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I’ve found a very simple solution with windows' embed backup system! There is a posibility to backup to the network shared folder. You just have to make a folder on encrypted drive and share it. Then you can click “Save on a network…” button at Set up backup dialog and choose your own computer and your shared folder on encrypted disk.

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  • That's an interesting workaround I hadn't considered.
    – jasonh
    Apr 9, 2010 at 5:47
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The “Save on a network…” solution works! You just have to use "Properties" -> "Advanced Sharing" and share it with the System group. Then you can select the \localhost\folder path in Windows backup.

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Do you need to use VSC? Why not just use dd (dd for windows: http://www.chrysocome.net/dd) to do the block copy?

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  • Can it capture files that are in use?
    – jasonh
    Dec 29, 2009 at 2:08
  • Yup, it can. You would want to run it as a scheduled task with if (input file) pointed at the disk you want to backup and of (output file) set to the location/name of the image file you want to store it as.
    – mothis
    Dec 29, 2009 at 12:27
  • Interesting, I'll have to give this a spin.
    – jasonh
    Dec 31, 2009 at 4:04
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    Failed with: "Error opening input file: 32 The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process". It looks like it can only backup volumes that aren't mounted. I also tried pointing it at the Harddisk device, but that only resulted in: "Error native opening input file: 0 The operation completed successfully" and of course, nothing was backed up.
    – jasonh
    Jan 2, 2010 at 9:38

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