BitLocker normal light-blue screen but no unlock prompt. Still works!

Hi all,

I've enabled BitLocker (Win 10 Pro) on a Dell laptop Inspiron 5558 and all went well.

BUT.... When I power on the computer the familiar light blue BitLocker screen appears but there is no prompt to enter the key. Just a light blue screen, nothing else whatsoever. However, I can enter the BitLocker key (blind, of course) and then viola Windows boots up properly! So BitLocker is working.

I would normally suspect a display driver issue but the BitLocker code happens long before any device-specific display driver would load (right?). Anyone else seen this or have suggestion on what to do?

Same Happening on a Windows 10 installed Dell Vostro 2520.
Also being reported over on the MS forums:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...8bc3e62?page=2

NUCWW0Ozx2 said:

Same Happening on a Windows 10 installed Dell Vostro 2520.
Also being reported over on the MS forums:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...8bc3e62?page=2

Thank you for the link to MS forums. That totally makes sense and the timing is spot on. For the time being, I've simplified the unlock key (no TPM on this laptop) to a fairly long repetition of the same letter. At least that's easier to type in blind.

The BitLocker screen will display as either a solid blue screen with not text or black/white/orange vertical lines. Like a leap of faith, have the user type in their decryption password and press enter. There will be no visual indication that the password is being accepted but if correct Windows will start to load.

Maddening that this happens but it will at least allow them to stay functional.

Hope this helps.

TheJMan said:

The BitLocker screen will display as either a solid blue screen with not text or black/white/orange vertical lines. Like a leap of faith, have the user type in their decryption password and press enter. There will be no visual indication that the password is being accepted but if correct Windows will start to load.

Maddening that this happens but it will at least allow them to stay functional.

Hope this helps.

Mine has started doing this with orange vertical bars (worked normally for months). If I move the boot drive to my backup computer it does the same thing there so I reinstalled windows 10 after formatting the hard drive - still getting the orange bars.

I had the same orange bars - see this thread.
Bitlocker (without TPM) password login replaced by orange stripes
The suggestion was that it was to do with recent cumulative update KB3172985, which explains why a few people have been affected in the last couple of weeks.

Someone in that thread was able to uninstall KB3172985 and then reinstall it, which fixed it for them, but I didn't see that in time to try that.

What I did in the end was to unencrypt, then re-encrypt it all again, and at the same time I also deleted the graphics driver and reinstalled it. This did fix the problem but the unencryption and re-encryption took many hours on my slow disk.

In hindsight I'd probably try deleting the graphics driver on its own - I would use the option to suspend Bitlocker before you try it though. Also, deleting the graphics driver is a bit drastic as you can't see what's going on and therefore can't see to shut-down, so before doing anything, I'd go into Power settings to (a) turn off fast startup and (b) make sure the power button does a full shutdown, at least temporarily.

I also took a full Macrium backup image before doing anything so at least I could get back to where I was, in case I made it worse! I also made sure I had a copy of the Bitlocker recovery keys to hand before trying anything- I would also use the option to save them to a USB or file while you can, so you can get back in.

Thanks all for your comments.

I explained to the user that it's harmless -- BitLocker is still working. I made his unlock key a lot easier (though it's still long) so he's very unlikely to mistype it.

From the other thread:

BZee said:

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

So it looks like Suspending Bitlocker, then uninstalling KB3172985 (and reinstalling later) is the way to go.