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Locked out by Bitlocker, unable to restore to factory settings

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Tuesday, August 9, 2016 6:10 AM | 2 votes

I had a bitlocker bluescreen come up. I did not install Bitlocker, but I followed the instruction and got my 48 digit recovery key via another device. 

The key did not unlock Bitlocker, the laptop simply, without prompt started a diagnostic, the conclusion of which was "unable to fix the problem" 

Every option I have tried has not  worked, I have put in te recovery key it doesnt work, I have "skipped drive" nothing, I tried to restore to factory setting but keeping my files "unable to perform due to drive being locked" advised me to unlock although I cant get into my comp. to unlock, I also tried to restore to factory settings, all via the troubleshooting option, this time it simply said "unable to reset"

I can access "command prompt" but I have no idea and could not find any information on what I need to prompt to start the restore.

ALL I WANT IS TO RESET MY LAPTOP TO FACTORY SETTING AND START AGAIN WITHOUT BITLOCKER. PLEASE THERE MUST A WAY TO OVERRIDE THIS. 

 

All replies (22)

Wednesday, August 10, 2016 6:08 AM âś…Answered | 1 vote

Hi CasbahRecharge,

When did the issue start to occur? Have you made any modifications to the machine before?

"but I followed the instruction and got my 48 digit recovery key via another device. "
Please ensure the "Identifier number" on the Bitlocker UI is corresponding to the recovery key`s "Identifier Number" you have saved before.

The recovery key is the only way to unlock the machine if the machine is in a recovery mode. Or we will have to format the drive and perform a clean installation. Of course, the data in the system drive will be lost forever.

Please note Ronald Schilf`s will clear all the data in the disk. If you only encrypted the system drive, there is no need to clean the whole disk.

Best regards

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Tuesday, August 9, 2016 7:06 PM | 7 votes

Boot from a setup usb drive. Press shift f10 to bring up a command prompt. Launch these commands:

diskpart

list disk

select disk x

clean

(x being the number that "list disk" revealed).

Then, you can install windows.

For cases like this, have an image backup ready. Windows offers to create this for you.

Monday, August 29, 2016 12:55 PM

Hello thank you for your feedback. I am trying to reset to factory settings, but it is not allowing me to do so. When I requested a reset, via troubleshoot, , it just said unable to reset. It is a new laptop, a little Lenovo idea pad, only had it 3 months,. I took it to a repair place and they said they couldn't reset, suggested I change the hard drive, I agreed but the hard drive is connected to the mother board... Surely there is another way to reset, I don't care about the minimal amount of stuff I have on my drive I just want my laptop back, at this stage the unwanted Microsoft protection is preventing me from doing anything. Please tell me there is something I can do because at this stage it looks as though I have to bin the laptop. Which is a serious annoyance. How can I not just override the Bitlocker and reset to factory??? Please help. Richard

Friday, September 9, 2016 10:55 AM

@Cabash: did you read my comment? It helps.

Sunday, June 18, 2017 3:32 PM | 2 votes

I have the same issue on Dell desk top - its three months old working perfectly until I enabled bitlocker - had the same issues as above blue screen bitlocker loop that results in everything failing just goes  into a loop of wanting the recovery key which it  accepts once then asks again and won,t accept - cant use it to unlock the C: drive via a command prompt - won't factory or PC reset  says the drive is either locked or needs bit locker disabled - it crashed so quickly after it was turned on that the drive cannot have been encrypted

Microsoft support don't want to know just blame Dell - Dell don't want to know just blame Microsoft - all I  know is it wasn't me -  but I have now got to pay to have the machine rebuilt - unless anyone knows how to fix it....

Monday, June 19, 2017 6:04 AM

See my previous comment, goodbadgeruk1.

Saturday, July 29, 2017 11:30 PM

Thank you very much!

Tuesday, August 8, 2017 1:20 PM

What is a "setup USB drive"????

Tuesday, August 8, 2017 1:20 PM

What is a "setup USB drive"? 

Tuesday, August 8, 2017 1:23 PM

A bootable USB stick with windows setup on it.

Monday, February 12, 2018 8:14 AM

yeah there is no disks listed

when I tried to clean it notthing was under the disks listed

Thursday, September 6, 2018 1:42 AM

Will doing this option cause me to lose my data? I have an old laptop with windows 10 with bit locker on the C: drive and don't have the key anymore. When I do this option too will I need to have a windows license to activate windows?

Thursday, September 6, 2018 6:26 AM

Do what option, diskpart clean? Yes, it will. But you may try to unlock your disk from the command line

manage-bde -unlock c: -rp 111111-222222-...yourRecoverykey-...-666666

After successful mounting, yu can copy the data to a removable drive or usb stick and then clean the disk.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:33 PM

This saved me on a Surface Pro 3 that an employee signed into with their Microsoft account and enabled bitlocker without us knowing! The employee was long gone and we needed to load a new Windows 10 image on it. Thanks for the info!

Monday, December 17, 2018 3:49 PM

Hi Ronald,

How do I install Windows after launching the 4 commands you have listed. Windows has not offered to create this for me...

Thanks

Monday, January 7, 2019 4:31 PM

hi did you managed to sort this out i am having the same problems,

Cheers dan 

Wednesday, January 16, 2019 2:40 AM | 1 vote

Boot from a setup usb drive. Press shift f10 to bring up a command prompt. Launch these commands:

diskpart

list disk

select disk x

clean

(x being the number that "list disk" revealed).

Then, you can install windows.

For cases like this, have an image backup ready. Windows offers to create this for you.

Hi, thanks for this.

I get how this works but unfortunately, I can't seem to access the bootable USB.

I have an Asus Transformer Book T100TA and when I go into BIOS and set boot priority to USB, save & exit and it restarts, it doesn't seem to read the usb.

However when I do the same operation to a different laptop, it reads the usb perfectly. It seems like the BIOS of the T100 is setup differently - maybe because it's a hybrid laptop/tablet? Not really sure but I just need it to read the usb, erase all my files and reformat my laptop.

Cheers and thank you.

Friday, May 17, 2019 3:38 AM

Or if you have boot UEFI with CSM or something you probably dont have to do all those other steps, you just switch to that boot method and it is compatible with UEFI to legacy boot recovery disk drives. 

Friday, May 17, 2019 3:40 AM

I think, but don't quote me on this as factual, you might have to turn off safe boot and turn on legacy boot mode to be able to run the usb drive 

Friday, May 17, 2019 3:56 AM

@Ronald Schilf   Thanks bro, this was irritating me. Only wanted to reset my windows boot and couldnt figure out how to freaking do it. I formatted the thing in advanced pre boot settings but it wasnt working. 

Thursday, May 30, 2019 3:24 AM

@Ronald Schilf
I am having the same problem with the Bitlocker and can't get even the prompt. I just want to reset and start fresh. Can you give suggestions.

Friday, June 7, 2019 3:08 PM

Hi,

I have exactly the same problem. New notebook needed to be sent to repair. They exchanged the motherboard. Now I am locked out by bitlocker. I would be happy to just reset everything, don't care about the data.

The suggestions made in this thread, boot from USB, format etc. ... well from where do I get a bootable USB? How do I format and reinstall my windows? I have not created any recovery usb before. I don't have a windows anywhere but on the notebook which I cannot start now.

Any further hints would be much appreciated. Seeing this thread, I am not the only one who struggles here ...