Unable to boot a VHD of medicat with Ventoy 1.77

[aristo123]

Hi,
I'm using VM Ware Player 16.2x. How do you format a ventoy usb with NTFS and keep the correct ventoy partition layout? When I format the 1st. data partition with NTFS the 1mb space after the efi partition is lost. I went back to using mbr, fat & exfat for the ventoy disk.

All I did was to select the drive letter for "Ventoy" in Windows 10 and reformatted it to NTFS. The resulting Ventoy USB with the NTFS data partition booted just fine, I was able to boot various ISO's on that Ventoy USB. I did not look at the partition layout post-format, sorry.

Are you using a ventoy_grub.cfg for booting vhd(x)s. Do you use the boot conf replace & menu extention options? Right now when I press the F6 option at the Ventoy menu, the ventoy_grub.cfg menu setup only flashes briefly. How does ventoy use ventoy_vhdboot.img if it isn't called by the *.cfg file?

Phil

No, I'm strictly following the instructions here, no more, no less:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vhdboot.html
So all I did was to place ventoy_vhdboot.img in a "ventoy" folder on the ventoy partition and place the VHD in the root folder. That's it.

[Digi-O]

My system is set for UEFI boot. I made a VHD of medicat (GPT, Ventoy 1.77, NTFS). 
I then created a Ventoy 1.77 USB disk (GPT, NTFS).
I put the medicat.VHD on the Ventoy USB disk, created a /ventoy folder, and put the Windows 10 ventoy_vhdboot.img into the /ventoy folder.
On boot the Ventoy menu appears, but when I select the medicat target I get an error and am unable to boot:
File: \Windows\system32\winload.efi
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains erros.

Note:
- The medicat VHD boots successfully in VirtualBox
- Ventoy (GPT) installed directly onto the USB disk boots fine
- Medicat installed directly onto the USB disk boots fine


I've tried all of the following:
- Partition VHD with MBR
- Partition Ventoy USB with MBR
- Format Ventoy USB as exFat
- Tried the Windows 7 ventoy_vhdboot.img (different failure)
I see the same issue in all cases.

---

My system is set for UEFI boot. I made a VHD of medicat (GPT, Ventoy 1.77, NTFS). 
I then created a Ventoy 1.77 USB disk (GPT, NTFS).
I put the medicat.VHD on the Ventoy USB disk, created a /ventoy folder, and put the Windows 10 ventoy_vhdboot.img into the /ventoy folder.
On boot the Ventoy menu appears, but when I select the medicat target I get an error and am unable to boot:
File: \Windows\system32\winload.efi
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains erros.

Note:
- The medicat VHD boots successfully in VirtualBox
- Ventoy (GPT) installed directly onto the USB disk boots fine
- Medicat installed directly onto the USB disk boots fine


I've tried all of the following:
- Partition VHD with MBR
- Partition Ventoy USB with MBR
- Format Ventoy USB as exFat
- Tried the Windows 7 ventoy_vhdboot.img (different failure)
I see the same issue in all cases.

Have you had any joy resolving the issue?

[Steve2926]

The latest Medicat is actually based on Ventoy - it is not a Windows bootable image. It boots to Ventoy and from the Ventoy menu you boot to different payloads such as Mini Windows.
Change the extension to .img and it should boot to the Medicat\Ventoy menu.

[Van Flusen]

The latest Medicat is actually based on Ventoy - it is not a Windows bootable image. It boots to Ventoy and from the Ventoy menu you boot to different payloads such as Mini Windows.
Change the extension to .img and it should boot to the Medicat\Ventoy menu.

Great !!! 

Rename the previously created .vhd of MediCat-USB to .img and now you can select the .img file from the Ventoy USB-drive and the Ventoy menu of MediCat-USB appears.

Thanks a lot Steve2926

[aristo123]

The latest Medicat is actually based on Ventoy - it is not a Windows bootable image. It boots to Ventoy and from the Ventoy menu you boot to different payloads such as Mini Windows.
Change the extension to .img and it should boot to the Medicat\Ventoy menu.

I can confirm this works perfectly in a VM (Parallels), and will confirm on a physical machine later. and also on a physical machine.
Thank you for not giving up on this and figuring out this elegant/simple solution, hats off to you sir!

[Steve2926]

Do you have the \System, \Programs and \PortableApps folders extracted to the Ventoy drive (and the \CdUSB.Y and \Start.exe files)?
I think it needs these to be present for some WinPE-based options such as Mini Win10 and MalwareBytes to work?

Also, it won't legacy boot to anything in the medicat menu.
i.e. legacy boot to Ventoy - choose medicat.img - choose Mini Win10 - black screen + flashing cursor. Same with any other menu payload.
If UEFI-boot it is OK.
If I legacy boot directly from the medicat.vhd in a VM it is ok.
If I legacy boot using E2B (grub4dos) it is OK (using Medicat_.vhdhdd.img name+extension).
If I legacy boot using E2B to 'Ventoy for Easy2Boot' and then load the Medicat.img from Ventoy - it hangs with flashing cursor.

[Steve2926]

I have found that you can Legacy boot to the Medicat VHD .img file using grub4dos

1. Download the grub4dos  grub.exe file and copy it to your Ventoy disk - root
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqlrQcdsFA-K8RZX0B4P...H?e=vwNo1b
2. Add the following lines to the \ventoy\ventoy_grub.cfg file (make one if it does not exist)

Code:

if [ "${grub_platform}_${grub_cpu}" = "pc_i386" ]; then

menuentry "Run Medicat using grub4dos (Legacy)" --class=custom {
set root=${vtoydev},1
set mycmd="map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 (hd0,0)/Medicat.img (hd) ;; map --hook ;; rootnoverify (hd-1) ;; chainloader +1 ;; ls / ;; boot";
# line below must not exceed 255 chars when expanded
linux /grub.exe --config-file=${mycmd};
boot
}

fi

The Medicat.img file should also be contiguous - use Defraggler to defrag it.

Legacy boot to Ventoy and Press F6 for the extended menu.

The following Medicat payloads have problems:
RescueZilla - FAILS
BootIt Bare Metal - use F1 - end name with _VTMEMDISK.iso
Boot Repair Disk - FAILS
Rescatux - FAILS
Super Grub Disk - FAILS
Ultimate Boot CD - some linux ISOs fail
System Rescue -  use F1 - end name with _VTMEMDISK.iso
Parted Magic - FAILS

Extract and copy the ISO files to the Ventoy USB disk if you need them!

[nguyen ha thai trong]

Change the name medicat.VHD to medicat.VHD.vtoy then book ok

[Steve2926]

Change the name medicat.VHD to medicat.VHD.vtoy then book ok

Medicat.vhd.vtoy does not boot - just get
VT and flashing cursor

[Van Flusen]

It would be desirable if Longpanda would comment on this issue.