Windows 10: Drives are bitlocked which is stopping me reinstalling Windows 10

I am running Windows 10 Home on a 1-year old Dell Inspiron which has 2 hard drives and yesterday my son was playing Minecraft when the screen suddenly went blue and asked for my recovery key. I have been able to enter the recover keys for both drives and get to the troubleshooting section but none of the repair options work and I am unable to restore the computer says there are no restore points nor restart it just goes back to the blue screen with troubleshooting options. I am hoping it isn't malware but I unable to do a scan as I can't get to safe mode. I can get to the OS recovery screen and it says my hard drive is fine but there are issues with the partition table, boot files and windows health.


Thanks to Greg Carmack's excellent thread and others I was able to download Windows 10 to an external USB from another computer and tried to install it on my desktop but hit a wall when I was trying to highlight the drives to install it on as they are both bitlocked. I feel like I can't win, as if I boot up normally I can unlock both discs but by then it is too late to boot from the USB, but if I boot from the USB I can't get to the screen that lets me unlock the discs it suggests I go to the Control Panel, which I can't access. It was also giving me an error message from one of the discs that it is the wrong type for the install.


Incidentally, I never set up Bitlocker and don't know why it suddenly appeared. Also, I'm not particularly computer-savvy so won't be able to do anything complicated. Thanks for any help

:)

 

BitLocker Encrypted Hard Drive to MAC

Hi,



Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community. I regret the inconvenience caused to you. Let me help you.



I suggest you to perform below mentioned steps to disable BitLocker.

To disable BitLocker I would suggest you try the following steps and see if it helps.

• 
  Press Windows key + X and click on
  Control Panel.
  
• 
  Change View by from Category
  to Large Icons/Small Icons.
  
• 
  Click on BitLocker Drive Encryption and click on
  Turn BitLocker Off.
  
• 
  Follow on screen instructions. Click on Decrypt the Drive
  when the message appears.
  

I would suggest you click on the link below and refer the following article.

Scenario 12: Turning Off BitLocker Drive Encryption (Windows 7)

Scenario 12: Turning Off BitLocker Drive Encryption (Windows 7)

(You can refer the steps in the above link as they are applicable for Windows 10 as well)



Check if it helps.



I hope the information helps. Please keep us posted on the issue. We will be happy to assist you accordingly.

Thank you.

 

BitLocker key cannot unlock the disk. Neither can i reinstall cause the drive is blocked

Hi Havard,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

I understand the inconvenience you are facing currently.

I would appreciate if you can provide us the following information to help us understand the issue better.

• Did you try to unlock the drive using the Bitlocker application in Windows 10?
  
• If yes, did you get any error message while trying that?

I suggest you to follow the methods below and check if that helps:

Method 1:

I would suggest you to try unlocking the drive using the Bitlocker facility available in Windows 10 and check if you are able to unlock it successfully. If you are getting any error message with says “Application not found”, then I would suggest you
to refer the article provided in the link below:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/unlock-bitlocker-protected-drive

Method 2:

I would suggest that you try the steps mentioned in the link below and check if it helps resolve your issue.

Important: This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For
added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following link to view the article “How to back up and restore
the registry in Windows” from the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/322756

(Applies to Windows 10)

For more information regarding BitLocker, you may refer the article "BitLocker Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" from this link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831507.aspx

Hope the information helps. Please let us know if the issue persist and we will be happy to assist you further.

 

Windows 8.1 PRO unable to unlock Bitlocked drive

Can you take a screen shot of the bitlocker window?

Also, what happens when you highlight the drive in This PC and go to the Manage tab? There should be some bitlocker options there.