Windows 10 Clean install stuck with BitLocker

speedjay · 24 Apr 2020

bobkn said:

Huh? My post didn't say anything about accessing the encrypted drive. Just go to the screen where the key is requested, and then restart. I'm not certain that it is possible to restart from that screen, rather than forcing a shutdown, but I thought it was worth suggesting.

I probably should have quoted rather than just posting the link. I'll do that now.

Attach the USB device to the system via any available USB port.
Press and hold the Power Button for few seconds to turn off the system completely.
Note: For Windows 8/8.1/10, restart the system before using the following steps.
Power on the system. Press F12 immediately as the Thinkpad logo appears.
There should be a pop-up menu with a list of choices. Select the USB drive using the arrow key and press Enter.

The Note was the main point. I've never had to do anything like that to boot from a USB drive, but I presume that it's there for a reason. I'm not sure how to interpret it, but my guess is that F12 might work if the laptop is restarted, rather than cold booted. Won't take much effort to try it.

I did try this many time. Boot Menu shows up soon as I hit F12 on the power up. But thats it, I can take the arrow key yo all 3 options and select but nothing happens.
3 options would be 1) USB Drive
2) ATA HDD
3) PC LAN

Feels like bios has locked my boot options saying that I can go to BIOS and change any value and save it.

sn00ker · 25 Apr 2020

sygnus21 said:

Setting the BIOS to default won't release BitLocker's security or else it's useless. I certainly wouldn't want a drive encryption tool that can be bypassed by a BIOS reset

You're right and I never did say it would either. We are talking about loading from the bios ( live Linux USB flash drive ) not from the hard drive. If he can't load from the bios there something not right in the setting. You should be able to load a live drive from the bios if it set right and once you do load from it then you could wipe the hard drive like what NavyLCDR mention already to try. Also you might want to try, the flash drive you are using might it be 3.0, if so? Try using a usb 2.0 flash stick

Farek01 · 23 Jun 2021

I know this is late however I’ve had the same issue and have managed to solve it:

Make your way to the UEFi boot manager and then the trouble shoot menu and select the command prompt.
Here enter the below in this order

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list volume

Now locate which of the listed volumes has the larger size in GB. Commonly the larger volume is where Windows installed on (the locked drive).
Then select the larger volume by typing this command: select volume *number*
* Note: Change the volume number at the above command according your case (e.g. "select volume 2")

Finally delete the selected volume by giving this command: delete volume override

Type exit to close DISKPART tool and then close Command Prompt.
Turn Off and then Turn ON your device again. Make your way back to command prompt again and type in:

diskpart
List vol

For me the USB stick is now the ‘C’ drive (obviously change this to whatever letter your USB is).
Type exit to close Diskpart and type in: C:\setup.exe
(Or if the setup.exe is in a subfolder just simply change it to the correct path e.g.: C:\iso_files\setup.exe)
This then opened up the windows installation screen from me and went straight through with it without any further issues.

Silverstar1323 · 01 Mar 2022

Thank you Farek01 I'm going to try this now. I was having the same issue and couldn't find help anywhere online until now so very much appreciated!