Is TrueCrypt robust against data corruption?

Encrypted backups do have their drawbacks. In case the backup media becomes corrupted, you may lose everything whereas chances are much better to retrieve unencrypted backups (at least partially) from a damaged disk.

In any case, only one set of backups is insufficient. And if applicable, maintain an unencrypted backup in a safe location (e.g. a bank vault). Security comes at a price.

• For removable devices refer to this question
• Backups and redundancy (the RAID kind) are important
  • For optical media, move the data to new media every few years
    alternatively, stop using optical media and shift to newer forms of backup
    (yes, that too is your question)
• If you do hit a corruption later, check the recovery methods for your media
  Look at the next point in TrueCrypt FAQ,
  What do I do when the encrypted filesystem on my TrueCrypt volume is corrupted?

File system within a TrueCrypt volume may become corrupted in the same way as any normal unencrypted file system. When that happens, you can use filesystem repair tools supplied with your operating system to fix it. In Windows, it is the 'chkdsk' tool. TrueCrypt provides an easy way to use this tool on a TrueCrypt volume: Right-click the mounted volume in the main TrueCrypt window (in the drive list) and from the context menu select 'Repair Filesystem'.

I've lost 500 GB of data that was device encrypted. I tried everything; CHKDSK is useless when you can't mount the disk.