Encrypted Drive Password Pop-up

[mintymatrix]

I have two encrypted pen drives. One of 32 Gb and another of 128 Gb.

I use both and they work fine. Only difference is that when 128 Gb one is inserted in the USB port, Mint does not gives any pop-up to ask for its password, where as it does so in case of the 32Gb one. To unlock the 128 Gb drive I have to click on its icon in the file manager and I get a pop up for that.

On comparing in 'Disks' software I found that 'Partitioning : MBR' was not mentioned for 128Gb drive. See the attached pic.
Why is it so ? And can it create any problem ?

Pen Drives.png (35.86 KiB) Viewed 304 times

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[dave0808]

Manufacturers of these devices tend to ship them without a partition table. The whole storage is just formatted. It's when we users reformat the storage that a partition table is created and the device is formatted properly.

It won't create problems as such, as Mint/Linux/Windows etc can handle it OK. However, I think certain tools for backing up / restoring partitions can have problems with storage that doesn't have a partition table.

[Cosmo.]

It would be interesting to know, which file system the two drives have.

[mintymatrix]

It would be interesting to know, which file system the two drives have.

Both are EXT4, password protected with LUKS.

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[mintymatrix]

Manufacturers of these devices tend to ship them without a partition table. The whole storage is just formatted. It's when we users reformat the storage that a partition table is created and the device is formatted properly.

It won't create problems as such, as Mint/Linux/Windows etc can handle it OK. However, I think certain tools for backing up / restoring partitions can have problems with storage that doesn't have a partition table.

So do you advise that I create a partition table in that drive ?
If so which tool is better ? Gparted or Disks ?
After that, when I Encrypt it with Disks, will the partition table still be there ?

[Cosmo.]

Scandisk delivers their sticks with ext4 preformatted? Unbelievable. 99 % of all customers (all Windows and Mac users) would not be able to use them.

[mintymatrix]

Scandisk delivers their sticks with ext4 preformatted? Unbelievable. 99 % of all customers (all Windows and Mac users) would not be able to use them.

I do not think I mentioned anywhere it came Preformatted with EXT4.
At the time of starting this thread both drives were EXT4 format.

[Cosmo.]

Than I do not understand, why you ask "Why is it so", when you did it yourself.

Besides that: I would at first take a look at the sticks with gparted, which is preinstalled in the live system.

[mintymatrix]

Than I do not understand, why you ask "Why is it so", when you did it yourself.

Besides that: I would at first take a look at the sticks with gparted, which is preinstalled in the live system.

That is exactly why I posted it here. I formatted (and encrypted) BOTH the drives using 'Disks' application and with 'nearly' the same settings but still why is the Partitioning : MBR missing in the larger drive and the pop up asking for the password does not comes up automatically.

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[Cosmo.]

I do not use encryption, so I cannot answer from own experience. But I assume that the missing automatic popup is a consequence of the missing information about the partition table (could theoretically also be GPT) and that's why I pointed you to Gparted.

[mintymatrix]

I do not use encryption, so I cannot answer from own experience. But I assume that the missing automatic popup is a consequence of the missing information about the partition table (could theoretically also be GPT) and that's why I pointed you to Gparted.

I might be deviating from the topic but I found that since last year or so, any live Linux drive made using Mint's USB Image Writer shows no Partition table in Gparted. So I reduced my usage of Gparted and use 'Disks' more. Also I am not sure how to encrypt disks with Gparted. I feel it is only related to partitioning work.

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[Cosmo.]

I did not say, that you shall use Gparted (although I do not find anything wrong with it), I said look in Gparted, what it tells about the partition tables.