I have a bit of bad news. Ventoy is not supported on Macs. Mac minis, Macbooks, just Mac hardware in general as far as I can tell.
But it’s a fact that’s buried deep into the Github notes when you go looking for support; if you’re not running a Mac there’s no way you would have known. But there it is:
But this comment especially from the repository owner was delightful after I’d already done everything suggested and more:
Ventoy actually doesn’t support Macbook. I never test it on Macbook.
You can do some try though
Lol, no. No more try, though at least this post let me know it was not user failure. But I want you to know it was a great suggestion, I did learn more along the way so it wasn’t all a waste of time, and I’ll definitely try Ventoy again when I get to non-Apple machines.
Thought I should tell you just in case you run into another Mac user. And thank you for the well wishes – we’re both nerds, so one of us disappearing into tech at odd moments is standard operating procedure around here. Happy Labor Day if you’re in the US.