Computer hangs (after the message 'Booting...' is displayed)

[Jack Reece]

Hi All,

Need your help troubleshooting my Dell laptop running Windows 10 with veracrypt 1.25.9 bootloader installed.

I removed my internal laptop battery as it was swollen and since I keep it on AC power 24/7 I don't need the battery.

Since doing so now when booting my laptop entering my pre-boot authentication password and PIM for my hidden OS it authenticates successfully OK but then is stuck forever on the blinking message "Booting..."

IMPORTANTLY, I can still boot into the decoy OS using the veracrypt bootloader.

Waited over 20mins nothing happens, tried to reboot several times same issue.

I have tried;

1. Reinstalling the internal battery
2. Unplugging the CMOS battery and re-plugging it in after 5 mins
3. Resetting BIOS settings to defaults
4. Removing and installing the SSD hard drive into another laptop (same issue occurs).

I am unable to update the laptop system BIOS as I have an pre-existing issue from before where the laptop will not attempt to execute the BIOS update for whatever reason, my system always hangs for 30 seconds before the system boots with the Dell Logo upon power ON - so somehow it skips or ignores all pre-boot instructions such as BIOS updates (I even tried manually flashing it).

I am assuming somehow my BIOS or boot manager got screwed after removing my internal laptop battery? What should I do to resolve this and keep my veracrypt OS and data intact, and importantly how did this happen to prevent it from occurring in future?

I still have my recovery key as well.

[Jack Reece]

I set the boot sequence in BIOS to boot from USB/Media.

I then inserted and booted using a windows 10 recovery media USB, entered troubleshooting, command prompt, ran the below commands to repair the mbr;

BootRec /fixmbr
BootRec /FixBoot

I made sure to set the boot sequence in BIOS back to the internal SSD drive.

Now the veracrypt boot loader wont even load, windows is stuck on a blinking curser after POST.

=(

[Jack Reece]

I managed to update the laptop BIOS to the latest version successfully, but this did not help since my mbr boot record is screwed anyway.

I tried using my VeraCrypt rescue disk to restore the Bootloader but this did not fix the issue, maybe because my rescue disk is of an older version of veracrypt bootloader? When I tried to decrypt function using the rescue disk it kept saying incorrect password despite it being correct, could this be because I am using an older version of rescue disk backup since I failed to make a new rescue disk after upgrading to version 1.25.9?

I tried installing VeraCrypt on an entirely different laptop and encyrpting the system using same version of Veracrypt 1.25.9 and then tried installing the other SSD drive into this laptop but the bootloader would not appear - this is likely because the boot record is stored on the actual SSD partition right? so this would never work if its broken/overwritten.

I was able to successfully install the SSD onto a desktop PC as a slave drive and mount both decoy and hidden OS partitions from the impacted SSD successfully and read all the content, so all the data is intact and there! I quickly copied it off so at least my data is recovered!

Before I go ahead and wipe the SSD and reinstall widows and create a new outer volume and hidden OS all over again from scratch, does anyone have any tips and ideas how I can restore the bootloader to the original SSD and fix/restore my mbr boot to this SSD and get it working again?

OR could I used the secondary desktop PC to access the partitions (which I was able to) and decrypt the drives, then reinstall the SSD back to the original laptop and will they boot into windows for my to re-encrypt the system? The only caveat here is I have the outer volume as the decoy OS and then the other partition which is a Hidden OS - if I go down this path of decrypting/re-encrypting will my hidden OS be in tact and bootable or is this NOT possible?

All of this was somehow broken or caused after I removed my internal laptop battery, and replacing the battery did not resolve the issue.

To note I am using Legacy boot option with secure boot OFF in my BIOS.

[Jack Reece]

If I try to use the older version of my Veracrypt Rescue disk to load the VeraCrypt boot loader and enter the correct password for the outer volume it accepts it OK but says "No Bootable Partition!" why?

I tried restoring both the Veracrypt Boot loader and the Volume Header using the rescue disk - successfully it says as it asks me to write to partition 0 y/n? and I say yes and it does it.

Is this all happening becuase of a different version of rescue disk versus the version of veracrypt being 1 version newer on the encrytped partition?

I am about done, had enough here. Going to wipe the SSD and start over =(

Disappointed in VeraCrypt being buggy but also uninformative. Why would removing my laptop battery cause my boot mbr to break?