@TechnicGeek
I've never used Veracrypt, however based on a quick look here, recovery/rescue media for MBR type disks uses GRUB4DOS.
If you need to boot in UEFI mode, then there is not enough information on the VeraCrypt Rescue Disk page for me to provide any help or advice.
Misty
I have succeeded with MBR and your suggested addition to menu.1st file to add 2 VeraCrypt files to the list. I could also press a hot key and edit that file in bootloader. I could rename .ISO file and it will update list on the fly so I could run different file.
For UEFI on that same help page it says: "For EFI boot mode, just insert your Rescue Disk into a USB port, boot your computer on it and then select Boot VeraCrypt loader from rescue disk on the Rescue Disk screen." I think I just need to burn the .ISO on USB drive and that's it.
I do use VeraCrypt, for most of my external drives. If you want to keep it simple:
1.Create an Easy2Boot flash drive
2. Create VeraCrypt Rescue ISO
3. Copy to appropriate location on E2B drive
However, E2B will boot the ISO in legacy mode. If you need UEFI, add the al1ve UEFI stuff when creating the E2B drive. When you boot into the drive's 2nd partition (via your UEFI boot menu or whatever), it will load, allowing you to select the ISO and boot it in UEFI mode. The UEFI side of this is untested by me, but I think it should work.
The .ISO itself is for UEFI boot. You mean E2B by default boots in legacy mode? What if I won't add al1ve UEFI in options? Would that render .ISO and bootloader incompatible and fail to boot?
I use VeraCrypt, but I do not use it to encrypt my OS partitions, I've had to many problems with stuff like Windows updates messing it up. As with ANY OS, especially encrypted ones, make backups regularly. I use Macrium Reflect.
I would imagine that Ventoy would work just fine booting to the VC ISO files, it has not failed me yet on various ISOs I've booted to. If you have a spare USB stick just give it a try, it's one of the easiest multibooters to setup out there. Download Ventoy and run the Ventoy2Disk.exe. This will destroy the contents of the USB drive. Put your ISO files for the VC recovery onto the 1st partition named Ventoy, the actual EFI partition that Ventoy loads with is hidden. Boot to the stick and see if it works. Let us know how it goes.
Didn't work with Ventoy and 2 .ISO images. Here's what I get when I go the Vintoy route after I hit enter on either of 2 .ISO files:
Here's the screen I get after attempting to load .ISO again both in normal mode and grub mode:
And here's what I get after burning VeraCrypt MBR version on USB drive using their own tools:
I boot-tested on QEMU Simple Boot and MobaLiveCD. Same errors. Maybe it's because I need to boot on my actual computers than in QEMU? For this I better backup my encrypted system drives first on both computers to be on the safe side? Is it necessary to unencrypt system drives first to backup?
But since it worked with MBR legacy mode and with additions suggested by misty so I will try it without simulation on both computers. I will only run VeraCrypt rescue disk but won't perform any actions.
Should I backup my hard drives on both computers before that to be on a safe side? They are encrypted. Should I decrypt them first and backup?
Edited by TechnicGeek, 30 April 2023 - 09:57 AM.