Pretest fails silently on Windows 10 Home

[Eddles]

Hi all,
My mum has brought a HP Spectre x360 laptop which comes with Windows 10 Home and thus doesn't have Bitlocker built in. So I would like to use Veracrypt to encrypt her laptop. I've installed and gone through the Veracrypt process OK but when Veracrypt tries the pretest procedure, it reboots and starts Windows without showing anything on the screen or asking for a password. Veracrypt then says the pretest has failed and ask if I would like to try again. I've tried disabling Secure boot in the BIOS but it didn't work. One suggestion I found was to try Legacy Boot but I'm worried it might stop Windows from working - is there any other way to install Veracrypt on this laptop without disabling Legacy Boot please? I also tried OS boot manager within the BIOS but it never showed another boot entry apart from the default Windows 10.

The process I took to install Veracrypt was:

• Select "Create Volume"
• Select "Encrypt the system partition or the entire system drive"
• Select "Normal" ("Hidden" is greyed out)
• Select "Encrypt the Windows system partition" (Encrypt the whole drive" is greyed out)
• Select "Single Boot" ("Multi-boot" is greyed out)
• Select "AES" and "SHA-512"
• Put in a password
• Collect random data
• Confirm that keys were generated
• Skipped rescue disk verification
• Created rescue disk recording
• Verified rescue disk successfully
• Wipe mode "None (fastest)"
• Clicked on "Test"

Then it rebooted the computer and the issue I mentioned above occurred.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Alex Kay]

First off, backup anything valuble off of this laptop,becace VeraCrypt will corrupt your data. It will happen eventually.
VC is not designed to work on modern laptops,especially with Windows 10 preinstalled. It works OK on a non system partition,so that's a workaround for you.
And difinetly do not delete any partions,especially the recovery as it has your product key which matches with your BIOS or whatever they call it nowdays.
Spend money on bitlocker. It's worth it.

[None no]

It will not happen eventually and it is not true that it is only for non system partitions. I use it on small servers also.

[Enigma2Illusion]

Disable Windows Fast Startup. Link below with procedures.

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-fast-startup-turn-off-windows-10-a.html

After you have disabled Windows Fast Startup and rebooted your computer, perform the VeraCrypt system encryption and shutdown (not reboot) your computer when prompted by VeraCrypt.

If you still fail the pretest, try using 1.23 Beta at the link below which has enhancements for UEFI.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/veracrypt/files/VeraCrypt%20Nightly%20Builds/

If the pretest still fails, make sure Secure Boot and possibly TPM are disabled in the BIOS.

[None no]

powercfg -h off

[None no]

Looks like a shitty corporate installed windows. Remove all partitions including recovery, zero sectors, switch to legacy in bios. Install windows from iso downloaded from microsoft.