TrueCrypt v4 vs. v6

[ChrisGreaves]

FUI:

Well! That was embarrassing.
Last night I backed everything up, from both machines to both encrypted external drives, and then re-installed WinXP (updates all to SP3 and beyond) on the old Big Beige Box, networked it, went to bed.
This morning I formatted the C: partition on the laptop (The D: partition being encrypted), installed Win XP (updates all to SP3 and beyond) and then found I couldn't get into my drive D: (Clients, Admin, Products, Training, i.e. My Life).
No sweat.
That's what twin external backups are for, right?
Then I then found that I couldn't get into either of my external drives.
Nor could the Big Beige Box get into the external drives.

Luckily for me it was lunch time and a time to step away from the computer.
After lunch I reinstalled Win XP on the laptop, with NO updates (in case a recent DLL has clobbered TrueCrypt), and decided to d/l Truecrypt from their web site.

Turns out the latest version is 7.x.
The latest I had on the BBB was 4.x, and it was this version I'd dragged across the network to unlock my D: drive (on which is my really-latest version in use).

All three partitions (D: on laptop and two external drives) were encrypted with version 6, I guess, for 6 was the latest version now visible on the laptop.

The versions 4.x on the BBB probably hadn't been used for years.

Moral: Don't panic.
Walk away and let the brain do something different.
If in doubt phone a colleague and talk it over with them.
Above all reason that not all three partitions can have been zapped by a cosmic ray overnight; it MUST be the environment.

(signed) "Lost a lot of weight" of Toronto.