Parallels and TrueCrypt - Drive Letter Problem

Hello:

I am running Parallels with Windows 7. I use TrueCrypt to encrypt my data. I generally mount my TrueCrypt container first, then load Parallels and then run Outlook 97, which I use for email.

In this order, Parallels assigns drive letters, including W: to the encrypted container. It will then assign X, Y, and Z to the three network drives to which I'm mapped.

If I deviate at all (for example, launch Parallels before mounting my TrueCrypt container or forget to plug in my network cable), the drive letter assignments go sideways. On my Windows machine, Outlook presents a dialog box that says, "I can't find any of your three PST files." I navigate to the first one and all is well.

In Parallels, it says, "I can't find the first PST file." I navigate to it. It then says, "I can't find the second one" although it's in the same folder. I repeat for the next two PST files. Then, it says, "I can't invoke any of your rules." Worst of all, it turns off mail delivery to the various email accounts and dumps all of the email into my exchange account. It takes me about ten minutes to recover and reset everything.

Is there a way to avoid this (besides the obvious of doing the same thing every time)? On the Windows side, TrueCrypt lets me assign a drive letter when I mount; Mac only assigns a slot. Does Parallels let you permanently assign a drive letter to a mounted volume?

Thanks,
Steven

 

Are you using an container or mounted volume? This isn't my area of expertise, but when I created an encrypted volume with TrueCrypt I used an external hard drive, and while it only had one partition (i.e. the entire 1TB drive), TrueCrypt asked me to select one of two things to designate as the encrypted volume. The choices were something like:

Western Digital External HD
disk1

Where both were selectable. I chose disk1 or whatever the inside option was, and everything was going fine, mounting under the pathway: disk1sc1. I stored this volume as a favorite so I can quickly mount the drive when I want, but every once in a while TrueCrypt says the path is invaild. I look in disk utility only to see that disk1sc1 has changed to disk1sc2. I have a feeling this is due to the fact that I did not choose Western Digital External HD as my encrypted volume but a deeper path instead.

Hope this helps, or may be you can help me?

 

Hi, Blake:

I created an encrypted container and then have to mount it each time on the Mac in order to access its contents. I was not able to solve the problem of the changing drive paths (plus no one from Parallels replied to my post--very disappointing). As such, I abandoned the use of Parallels for running Outlook and am now using Outlook for Mac/Office 2011.

I don't think I can help you understand why there was a pathway change on your machine. I with the Parallels support team was more active in helping me with a solution to my problem.

Steven

 

Sorry you couldn't figure it out. At least you found some sort of solution. Perhaps you could help me with my question on this thread:

 

anyone got a solution for this?

i mount my volume on the mac. share this drive using parallels in windows. and i want that the true crypt volume is also Z: or any other drive. As long as it's a fixed letter