On macOS, the same whole disk can be addressed as both /dev/diskN and /dev/rdiskN. The GUI creation wizard only compared the selected path against the enumerated raw device path, so manually entering the block-device alias could bypass the existing DEVICE_PARTITIONS_ERR guard and allow formatting a disk that still had partitions.
Add a shared macOS device-path comparison helper that normalizes paths to their raw-device form before comparison. Use it in the GUI wizard so /dev/diskN and /dev/rdiskN are treated as the same whole-disk target while partition paths remain distinct.
Apply the same partitioned whole-device guard in the text/CLI creation path as well, including the macOS alias normalization, so command-line creation cannot format a partitioned top-level disk through an alternate device alias.
Fixes#728
Pass -R to newfs_exfat in both GUI and text-mode volume creation so macOS derives a fresh exFAT layout instead of preserving stale geometry from an existing exFAT boot region. This matches Finder/Disk Utility erase behavior.
Validated on Windows 11: chkdsk no longer reports boot-region corruption on volumes formatted this way.
Fixes#1021.
APFS volume creation can still fail with Permission denied after preparing the raw and block device aliases because newfs_apfs performs privileged APFS container and volume operations beyond opening the device nodes.
Route APFS formatting through the elevated CoreService path for non-root macOS runs. Keep the elevated interface narrow by sending only the target device and invoking user UID/GID, validate the device path on the privileged side, rebuild the formatter arguments there, and execute /sbin/newfs_apfs by absolute path to avoid PATH shadowing.
Pass -U/-G so the created filesystem preserves the invoking user ownership. Apply the same path to GUI and text-mode creation.
When creating an APFS filesystem inside a newly created device-hosted volume, VeraCrypt prepared only the raw hdiutil device path before invoking newfs_apfs. On macOS, newfs_apfs may resolve or reopen the corresponding block device path, which can fail with Permission denied for non-root GUI runs.
Prepare both raw and block aliases for the temporary formatter device, restore changed owners afterward, and share the helper between GUI and text-mode volume creation. Restore each changed alias independently so one restore failure does not skip the rest.
Mounir IDRASSI
Mounir IDRASSI