Encryption Stuck at Start (black screen), Cannot Boot to Windows
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I encrypted my friends Win10 desktop with Veracrypt a couple years ago. About 6 months ago, boot failed and i decrypted to allow boot, leaving the Veracrypt bootloader intact.
Yesterday, I went over to set encryption once again. I set the password, no PIM, and created a new rescue disk, and it rebooted to start encryption. I waited about 30 minutes with no progress, but i know it is time consuming. 8 hours later, he sent me a pic with no progress, and again this morning. The cursor was not blinking the entire time.
I had him boot to the rescue disk, and tried the boot to windows option, but that failed as it thinks the drive is encrypted. i tried to decrypt, but it prompts me for both the password and PIM at the same time. However, the cursor is on the PIM (which Im not using, though i tried 98 and 485 as the defaults for <20 char passwords just in case), preventing me from entering the password. Attempting to remove the veracrypt bootloader had the same result.
What are my options to boot to windows?
Here are a couple screenshots of choosing boot to windows and remove encryption.
Did the PC reboot into the Windows OS so you can start the encryption?
Below is a video the developer created for Windows 10 UEFI system encryption:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqDMP1rD4Zg
If no, press the ESC key to by-pass the VeraCrypt bootloader since the Windows OS is not being encrypted nor starting to encrypt.
Thanks for responding!
My first thought when I read this was that the encryption did kick off, just enough to be in an encrypted state (is that possible?). The attached is what the screen showed from yesterday noon until this morning.
However, I did attempt to Esc after booting from the rescue disk, as well as booting without the rescue disk, and I received error 1962, OS not found, which is pretty hard to believe since I was in windows, created the rescue disk, then booted to that frozen screen. I feel it's in some sort of a limbo state, which would be easy to address if there decrypt option put there cursor in the password field instead of PIM.
Since you did not boot into Windows OS in order to start the actual encryption, I do not think the OS is in a partial or completed state of encryption.
Maybe something went horribly wrong with the pre-test phase.
Hence, using the Rescue Disk to decrypt a already decrypted OS will result in "encrypted" drive with no way to actually use the disk.
What do you mean by left the VeraCrypt bootloader intact after your decrypt the OS?
How did you decrypt the OS?
Depending on which VeraCrypt version was used for the initial system encryption before you decrypted the OS, at a certain VeraCrypt version, VeraCrypt had to perform a renaming bootloader trick due to certain PC brands kept restoring the MS bootloader.
So VeraCrypt system encryption would rename the MS bootloader and then rename the VeraCrypt bootloader to mimic the MS bootloader name to prevent the problem users were encountering.
I am wondering if the new Rescue Disk is now using the VeraCrypt bootloader for both Restore VeraCrypt Bootloader and Restore Microsoft Bootloader since you left the old VeraCrypt bootloader intact?
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2021-02-01
This could be more in alignment with what's going on.
This never happened. Like I stated, I assumed it is in a partially-encrypted state, but when I attempted a decrypt, I couldn't enter the password. And again, when I attempted a boot to Windows from the rescue disk as my first attempt, the error said I could not because the drive is encrypted, which is why I then attempted to decrypt.
I initiated the decrypt from the rescue disk. And while the drive was decrypted, the Veracrypt pre-Windows login was still produced on every reboot.
The only thing I can state here is this is the same Veracrypt version from the initial encryption a couple years ago, and the rescue disk has been created from that version anytime I created it. I think he mentioned Rescue Disk 1.24 when he was reading the screen to me yesterday, and while I could confirm that, I don't think I have a way of determining the Veracrypt version.
Thank you again for taking your time to advise on my problem!
If this is the case, am I SOL? My friend is a financial advisor, and I need to make an eventual decision to possibly buy a new hard drive and a new copy of Windows to get him back up and running.
To be honest, I do not know what is possible since I do not understand how the PC could have possibly encrypted the OS without booting back into Windows that requires you to click on the VeraCrypt message box to begin or defer system encryption.
My understanding is you have already tried from the Rescue Disk unsuccessfully the options:
.
Have you check the BIOS to make sure Secure Boot is disabled?
Here is a posting from the developer on accessing an encrypted OS to try to pull the data.
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/general/thread/7201fe14/#2e8f
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xJrVGzAk0Y
In your case, I do not know if this will work since I still believe the OS partition is not encrypted.
Thank you again.
I can't recall...the encryption occurs pre-Windows on the black screen, right? Not from the Windows desktop?
I did try all of those things, but I may have only attempted Esc without the rescue disk, but it could have been both.
I will check for the Secure Boot setting.