VeraCrypt Virtualbox Disk2VHD Error no bootable partition found

[Craig Bergman]

I may have made a mistake. Not sure where so here are the details. I am sure smart people can figure this out.

First as the title says I am trying to boot a copy of my C: drive into a VM.

I did all the steps on creating the VM. But I only picked the C: drive, was I supposed to add any other partitions? Should I redo the copy?

When I start the VM in VB, I get the boot loader for veracrypt as usual. I input the password, and PIM and POOF it says OK.

Then the error, NO BOOTABLE PARTITION FOUND.

So, is this something that can be fixed with my recovery USB? I do have that. Never had a use for it. But here it is handy.

Or is it some setting in the VM I did wrong? Or a part of the old set up drive or partition I did not fully copy?

It seems all there, and it does allow the VC pass pim to work. Just NO Windows after that.

Everything I read says it works so I messed something up.

Thanks in advance.

[Gary Marks]

Hi Craig,
I'm not familiar with VirtualBox or its Disk2VHD utility, but a general rule-of-thumb for virtualization of a physical machine would probably be the same as for backing up and restoring to a new hard drive -- choose all partitions that you did not specifically create yourself as data partitions. These will vary depending on your version of Windows and whether you boot with MBR or UEFI.

[Craig Bergman]

I did choose and add the 500mb system partition this 2nd attempt. Not just the C drive. No change. Same error. Same password working fine. Not bootable. Something in the process is missing or needs fixed because of how one of these apps interacts. Thanks

[Craig Bergman]

It is MBR and it IS the microsoft tool Disk2vhd. If anyone knows of a better app or process, I am all ears for it. I just need to move it. That PC is dying slowly with a failing MB. Thanks

[Gary Marks]

When prompted for the VeraCrypt password, try pressing ESC instead of entering a password. If that works, you'll know that the system was successfully virtualized in an unencrypted state. This is analogous to restoring a system from a hot backup, and may be what the Disk2VHD utility did.

[Craig Bergman]

Gary you are a genius. That is the case. Worked flawlessly. So, any idea how I would get it back to full disk encryption? Since I have this password saved and it is still working. Other thoughts? Thanks much.

[Craig Bergman]

Should I delete the old boot loader? how? Will choosing just to run encryption veracrypt over write it and work just fine? Which is the best mode to NOT mess it up?

[Gary Marks]

I'm glad it worked, Craig! After making sure you are running on stable hardware, you can encrypt the new virtual disk and it will automatically overwrite the now-invalid MBR (which you currently bypass with ESC). There is one precaution you might want to take to preserve your full range of future decryption and recovery efforts, though. When VeraCrypt encrypts the system, it saves a copy of the pre-existing boot loader in this file...
C:\ProgramData\VeraCrypt\Original System Loader

Presumably, that file currently contains a standard valid Windows boot loader saved from when you originally encrypted your system. Without the special steps below, that file will be overwritten with a copy of a VeraCrypt bootloader that is now invalid and shouldn't be saved.

1) Rename "Original System Loader" as "_Original System Loader" to prevent overwriting.

2) Re-encrypt your virtualized system normally.

3) Delete the newly created "Original System Loader" file.

4) Rename "_Original System Loader" back to "Original System Loader"

Now if you need to remove system encryption using either the VeraCrypt program or the Rescue Disk, it will finish by replacing the VeraCrypt bootloader with the original Windows bootloader.