Automatically rebooting after successful pre-test
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Hi. I am runnign Windows 10 and I have tried the beta version of veracrypt and the stable version. I have the same issue with both. I go through the process of encrypting the drive, it then tasks me to reboot to do the pre-test. I type the password in sucessfully during boot up and my computer starts up. Then the veracytpr screen pops up asking me if I want to continue with the encryption or defer it until later on. Then about 10 seconds later, before I get chance to do anything, the computer reboots. It starts up again, shows the same screen and then reboots again. It gets stuck in a loop and I have to format the PC to fix it.
I cannot find anybody else with this issue, most people seem to have an issue during boot up, but I can get past this stage and my issue happens with the computer rebooting already while its on the desktop.
Try disabling 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.
I have disabled Windows Fast Startup now. I have gone through the process again but I do not get any option to perform a shutdown instead of a reboot. At the end of creating the volume, it asks if I want to reboot to do the test and I click on Okay. If I dont click on Okay then it says everything will be uninstalled.
Tried going through the process again but there is no shutdown option. So once the screen popped up asking me to reboot, instead of clicking Okay, I just shut down my PC. But doing this didnt install Veracrypt so it just booted as normal.
Upgrade to 1.23 beta 4 due to a bug in beta 3 when attempting to perform system encryption.
Last edit: Enigma2Illusion 2018-08-17
I have tried formatting my PC and then only installing Veracrypt Beta 4 but the same thing is happening. I dont have any shutdown option like you mentioned, so I just go through the process of restarting. Everything boots up fine and I get to the windows desktop, the veracrypt test says its successful, then 15 seconds later the system just restarts itself again. Is there anything else I can try?
Sorry, I meant VeraCrypt will prompt to reboot. However, for UEFI system encryption, VeraCrypt will actually shutdown the computer when you press the Reboot button. I am sorry for the confusion.
Strange that your PC reboots again after 15 seconds after passing the pretest.
What is the make and model of your computer?
Are you running the latest BIOS firmware and OS updates?
Hi. The laptop is MSI GT75 8RG . I didnt update the BIOS because I only saw one bios release on the website and assumed I already had it since the laptop is quite new. I could try updating the bios though. I didnt update the operating system either, since I have to format each time Veracrypt messes up because I get stuck in a loop, so I didnt want to have to update every time. But I can try one more time and I can do a full format, update the OS and then update bios and see what happens.
Just tried updating the operating system now, have the latest updates and updated the bios. And installed all the drivers from the MSI website. Still got the same rebooting issue though. Maybe because the laptop wasnt released too long ago, this could be why? Is there anyway to remove veracrypt without booting into Windows? Because if not, it means I will have to format again to try again.
When your computer starts the reboot loop, are you prompted again to enter your VeraCrypt password on the bootloader screen?
If yes, merely press the ESC key to boot into Windows to see if this stops the rebooting issue after the pretest.
It asks me to enter the password. I press escape. And then the screen flashes and then the password box is still there. I press escape again, and then it loads the bios.
In the BIOS, do you have Secure Boot or TPM enabled? If yes, try disabling Secure Boot and TPM.
My only other suggestion is to boot into Windows in Safe Mode to uninstall VeraCrypt to get out of the reboot loop.
I disabled fast boot, secure boot and TPM. But still had the same issue. So I inserted my windows USB and loaded up the recovery options so that I could boot in safe mode. Before I even got chance to click the Restart button on the Safe Mode screen, the computer switched off itself, exactly the same as when it does on the Desktop after installing Veracrypt. Something with veracrypt is forcing the system to restart automatically. And it looks like now it isnt limited to desktop. If I do a format, then I have none of these issues and no restarts. Since my laptop was only recently released , I am guessing it will be hard to find somebody else with this issue.
Since you previously had Secure Boot enabled, can you provide the developer with the information from the thread below for future support of your PC using Secure Boot?
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thread/ace1e682/
Clearly something unique about your setup and/or the MSI GT75 8RG laptop causing this problem. Have you tried disconnecting any external monitors, harddrives and devices from the laptop?
If my system boots up with secure boot, then doesnt that mean its already supported?
For the other issue, I did have some USB drives plugged in, I tried disconnecting them but it didnt help. It looks like this laptop is just not compatible with VeraCrypt. The laptop is just sitting on my desk at the moment until I can find a solution or something as good as VeraCrypt to use instead. I was considering bitlocker but read that its not to be trusted and may contain backdoors.
If there is nothing else that I can try with Veracrypt, then is there another piece of software you can recommend which I could try? This is the problem with buying new technology such as this laptop, things aren’t always fully supported.
It is not supported and needs to be included to work with VeraCrypt.
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thread/ace1e682/
Sorry, I have no recommendations.
When I tried the none beta version, my computer wasnt even booting up at all. I had read online this was because of Secure Boot. But when I installed the beta version, it was booting up okay. So I thought that the beta version had added support.
For the other issue, I could contact MSI in regards to the rebooting issue but I think they will just ask me to contact the veracrypt developers since it only happens after installing veracrypt. Do you think a future version of veracrypt may fix this issue?
No since this may not be a VeraCrypt problem. There are other MSI owners using VeraCrypt without the reboot problem you encountered.
I can try purchasing a new SSD and install windows on that, since thats easy to replace. Or is it more likley to be an issue with something else?
I would work with MSI support to recreate the issue using the same model and options you have on your PC to determine the root cause which they may be able to fix with a BIOS update.
Hi. I will ask MSI too.
I was wondering if its possible to encrypt the drive from another drive. I have 2 drives in my laptop. So I could install windows on my secondary drive and install veracrypt there. And from this drive, I could create a full disk encryption of my main drive. And then I could install windows on the main drive and see if I get the rebooting issue. Or is this not possible?
I was also considering changing the encryption method from AES to something else, is this worth trying?
Not for system encryption since the bootloader has to be updated and other internal changes in VeraCrypt in order for system encryption to work properly. Nor can you install Windows OS on top of an already encrypted VeraCrypt disk.
In your case, I do not see any benefit of changing the encryption algorithm from AES to something else since AES has the smallest boot memory footprint.
Okay I thought of another solution, it isnt perfect but it might be the only way if I cannot fix it. What if I was to install Bitlocker on my main drive, and only use this drive for booting up and running windows here. I wont install any sensitive information on the windows drive. Then I will use my other drive which will just act as a storage device, it wont have windows on it. And I will use veracrypt on this drive, and install my applications and store my sensitive data here.
Using this method, if I open files from the Veracypt drive, will any of these files make their way to my main drive, the one with bitlocker? Will there be any links between the two drive? For example lets say my bitlocker drive was accessed, would somebody be able to view temperarily files or something that would allow them to see what I was doing on the veracrypt drive?
Applications can leak data to the OS from another drive. Example is MS Word creates a temporary saved file on the OS drive which is not the same temp file you can see in the directory of the file you are editing.
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Security%20Requirements%20and%20Precautions.html
Okay thanks for the link. I did contact MSI in the end, but they weren’t much help and just referred me to the developers of veracrypt. I did try encrypting using something other than AES, but that didn’t help. I know you said your out of ideas, but is there some setting I could possibly change in VeraCrypt before I start the encryption process, which adjusts the way it works or encrypts? Maybe I could try that. Then if that does not work, I will have to give up.