INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE on starting my bootable VHD

Hi,

I am trying to create a bootable USB flash drive using a VHD file. Here is my configuration:
1- VHD has two parititions: a 350 MB System partition and a 3 GB Boot partition with Windows 8.1 Enterprise installed on it.
2- USB thumb drive's MBR is programmed to have Grub4Dos bootloader using some tool like Bootice utility. A menu.lst file will help me to load the VHD using Grub.
3- To make Grub able to load my VHD, I had to install one of Firadisk or WinVBlock drivers on the Windows 8.1 image.


The critical need for me is to encrypt the Boot partition (the 2nd one). So, I used TrueCrypt to encrypt the running Windows and it successfully loaded with no extra modifications by me to the configuration.
To load the VHD put on flash drive and boot the system by it, I had to chainload the first Grub (residing on flash drive's MBR) to the new Grub put on VHD' mbr. I also used TrueCrypt rescue image to feed the chainloader of the second grub. This image was put on the system partition.
The final VHD configuration succeeded when attaching the VHD to a virtual machine created by Oracle VirtualBox. The OS went live without problem; but when I put the VHD on the USB drive, the TrueCrypt loader asks me the unlocking password and when goes to boot the encrypted part, it shows a BSOD screen after a while with "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" error code.

I tried to change the driver to WinVBlock or use another image rather than Rescue Disk Image, but nothing changed. I am surprised why VirtualBox is able to do the job so nice? Maybe it uses some tricky techniques.
I also tested DiskCrypt and BestCrypt, but no improvement was made.
Anybody can help me?
Thanks

May 31st, 2015 1:53am

Hi,

This forum is for Windows to go feature for Windows 8.1, Id suggest we post in more appropriate place so we might get effective suggestion by other experts who familiar with this. Your understanding is highly appreciated.

For Native Boot question, we dont recommend using third party software for boot configuration and encryption in that process, and no article shows Native Boot from removable devices supports encryption by using other encrypt software.

Since VirtualBox, WinVBlock, TrueCrypt and Bootice utility is not hosted by Microsoft, In that case I am afraid that we could not provide more suggestion on your issue because we know nothing about these programs. Your understanding is highly appreciated.

Regards,

D. Wu

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 3rd, 2015 5:48am

Hi,

This forum is for Windows to go feature for Windows 8.1, Id suggest we post in more appropriate place so we might get effective suggestion by other experts who familiar with this. Your understanding is highly appreciated.

For Native Boot question, we dont recommend using third party software for boot configuration and encryption in that process, and no article shows Native Boot from removable devices supports encryption by using encrypt software.

Since VirtualBox, WinVBlock, TrueCrypt and Bootice utility is not hosted by Microsoft, In that case I am afraid that we could not provide more suggestion on your issue because we know nothing about these programs. Your understanding is highly appreciated.

Regards,

June 3rd, 2015 9:47am

Thanks for your comment, Deason. I am afraid to post my question here. It was just a hope to find a person solve my problem.

The Windows To Go feature was amongst the first things I tried during my research. Unfortunately, the VHD boot is not supported by Bitlocker (according Microsoft articles on VHD limitations).

Regards,

Sisili

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 6th, 2015 3:53am

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