Bitlocker (without TPM) password login replaced by orange stripes

I'm having a problem that the Bitlocker password screen which appears when I switch on has been replaced by a pattern of vertical orange/ brown stripes.



The main laptop I use day-to-day has been running Windows 8/8.1 Pro since not long after Win8 was released- I bought one of the original Win 8 Pro licences when they were on offer at £25.

I've been using Bitlocker encryption on the main partitions C: and D:. It's an old laptop (originally came with XP) and has no TPM, so I used this tutorial to enable Bitlocker without TPM. This means I type a Bitlocker password in when the computer boots, before logging in as a user and typing in another password there.

It was running happily with Win 8.1, but conscious that the Win10 upgrade offer ends soon, last weekend I finally cleared enough disk space and upgraded to Windows 10.

I did the GWX upgrade as I have a lot of apps and software that would be a pain to reconfigure on a clean install, and not enough time to do that. I figured that as long as I've upgraded before the deadline, I can clean install later.

And it all went smoothly and worked happily for a few days ... right until a few days later when I switched on and the Bitlocker login screen was replaced by the pattern of vertical orange/ brown stripes. It seems I *can* type in the password 'blind' and once I've done that it boots as I'd expect. Not sure what triggered the change; I think it may have been because there were some updates that day, and the other thing I did was try the Task View on that machine for the first time.

It's an old Acer laptop, with the display adaptor described as 'Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family (WDDM 1.0)'

I've so far tried:

1. SFC /scannow (which didn't find anything)
2. System Restore
3. The trick of doing an in-place upgrade to attempt repair
4. Checking for an updated graphics driver
5. Reflashing the BIOS

but nothing has worked so far.

Now I'm decrypting the drives because I don't want to risk being locked out, but I'm not sure what will happen when I re-encrypt.

Anyone got any ideas on how I clear it?

DavidY said:

I'm having a problem that the Bitlocker password screen which appears when I switch on has been replaced by a pattern of vertical orange/ brown stripes.



The main laptop I use day-to-day has been running Windows 8/8.1 Pro since not long after Win8 was released- I bought one of the original Win 8 Pro licences when they were on offer at £25.

I've been using Bitlocker encryption on the main partitions C: and D:. It's an old laptop (originally came with XP) and has no TPM, so I used this tutorial to enable Bitlocker without TPM. This means I type a Bitlocker password in when the computer boots, before logging in as a user and typing in another password there.

It was running happily with Win 8.1, but conscious that the Win10 upgrade offer ends soon, last weekend I finally cleared enough disk space and upgraded to Windows 10.

I did the GWX upgrade as I have a lot of apps and software that would be a pain to reconfigure on a clean install, and not enough time to do that. I figured that as long as I've upgraded before the deadline, I can clean install later.

And it all went smoothly and worked happily for a few days ... right until a few days later when I switched on and the Bitlocker login screen was replaced by the pattern of vertical orange/ brown stripes. It seems I *can* type in the password 'blind' and once I've done that it boots as I'd expect. Not sure what triggered the change; I think it may have been because there were some updates that day, and the other thing I did was try the Task View on that machine for the first time.

It's an old Acer laptop, with the display adaptor described as 'Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family (WDDM 1.0)'

I've so far tried:

1. SFC /scannow (which didn't find anything)
2. System Restore
3. The trick of doing an in-place upgrade to attempt repair
4. Checking for an updated graphics driver
5. Reflashing the BIOS

but nothing has worked so far.

Now I'm decrypting the drives because I don't want to risk being locked out, but I'm not sure what will happen when I re-encrypt.

Anyone got any ideas on how I clear it?

Had the same issue. Try typing your key or password on that striped screen.

jrstech said:

Had the same issue. Try typing your key or password on that striped screen.

Yes I could login by typing in the password, but obviously it's not great and if the screen ever said something different behind the stripes, I'd have a problem.

I de-crypted in the end as I wasn't sure what to do next.

Someone also suggested it might be the graphics/display driver, so I deleted that (interesting problem of how to get it to shutdown blind as well).

Then I rebooted into the Basic adaptor and used Windows Update to get a new version of the driver.

Then I switched on Bitlocker encryption again, and it seems to be working so far.

I might have been able just to replace the graphics driver without de-crypting it though.

Ok, here's what I did. Removed Windows update KB3172985 then restarted and the issue persisted. Then reinstalled the update (Windows update will find the update again), restarted and now have the Bitlocker login screen.

jrstech said:

Ok, here's what I did. Removed Windows update KB3172985 then restarted and the issue persisted. Then reinstalled the update (Windows update will find the update again), restarted and now have the Bitlocker login screen.

Thanks for posting how you solved it. :)

I reckon KB3172985 would have been installed at the same time as my problem appeared too, which makes it look like the culprit. Interesting to know I'm not alone in having that problem from that update.

jrstech said:

Ok, here's what I did. Removed Windows update KB3172985 then restarted and the issue persisted. Then reinstalled the update (Windows update will find the update again), restarted and now have the Bitlocker login screen.

Tried this a few minutes ago - did not help (I have rebooted at least 3 times).

Redid the uninstall/reinstall of KB3172985 but suspended Bitlocker for the reinstall - now have the normal password screen.