Need help fixing my configuration.

[Ken Swarthout]

Hi! I have been requested by a friend to encrypt his hard drive in such a way where if needed, they could use plausible deniability. I am close, but I believe I have failed somewhere along the lines and was hoping for help. This is the current setup:

PARTITIONS
----------
Partition 1  100 MB
Partition 2   75 GB
Partition 3  220 GB
Partition 4 2048 MB

Volumes
-------
Volume 1       System Reserved 100 MB
Volume 2   C   75GB
Volume 3   D   220GB
Volume 4   E   HP_TOOLS        2048MB

So from all my reading and watching videos on the subject, I believe the way I want it configured is this:
Partition 2 is a dummy OS that is used regularly for non-sensitive information. Partition 3 contains a decoy hidden OS that contains fake sensitive information. Inside partition 3 is a decoy OS and then a real hidden OS.

Well, that's how I think it should be. For whatever reasons, I messed up somewheres. I can access the decoy OS, the (what I think should be a decoy) hidden OS, but there's no third real hidden OS. Is it possible to get a third OS like I want? One decoy OS, one hidden decoy OS (instead of just a hidden volume with data on it), and then a real hidden OS

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advanced!

[Ken Swarthout]

Just to try and make things more clear in case there's any confusion. I believe there should be three operating systems for plausible deniability. The first one, which he would use regularly and pretend doesn't exist, unless forced to. The second one is in the outer volume and would be used, after putting up a bit of a fight, to make the attackers think they uncovered the real hidden OS, and it should contain fake sensitive files.

The third one should also be in the outer volume and should be the real hidden OS that he never tells anyone about. It's this third one that I have seemed to mess up setting up somehow. Is this correct?

I believe my partition layout is correct. We're using NTFS for the filesystem. The HP_TOOLS partition is FAT32 and shouldn't be encrypted, but if it is, it's okay, I don't think this PC uses an EFI firmware. It's old. It's running Windows 7 Pro (a legit copy)

**EDIT: - From my perspective, a user using VeraCrypt, it was not very easy to figure out how to change the hidden volume OS and the hidden OS passwords. I finally managed to figure it out, but the docs weren't 100% clear. It took me a while and, I dunno, I wish I could have found a section in the documentation specifically about changing the passwords, with examples, on how to change all three.

Thanks!