Hey everyone, I'm in a bit of a tough spot here. My Dell Latitude laptop running Windows 11 went haywire after some updates, and I ended up with a BSOD (0x5a). The hard drive has completely failed, but I do have the BitLocker key. When I try to enter the key and use diskpart to clean the drive, it just doesn't work. Even when I'm reinstalling Windows, I can't delete the partitions because BitLocker is still active on them. I tried using a Linux live media and even DBAN, but I ran into around 40,000 errors during the scan. At this point, I've given up on recovering the data and the SSD itself. My main concern now is: if I replace my SSD, will I still have issues with BitLocker? I assume it's not stored in the TPM or anything, right? Any insights would be really appreciated!
3 Answers
You're right on the money! BitLocker is tied to the OS installation, so with a fresh SSD and new Windows install, you should be golden. Just hope it stays that way, because nobody wants to run into that dreaded BitLocker screen again, right?
No worries! If you install a new SSD and do a fresh Windows installation (not cloning the old drive), BitLocker won’t be automatically enabled. It's actually tied to the OS installation, not the hardware. It's strange you can't delete the BitLocker-protected partitions, though. It sounds like your SSD might be totally borked, not just protected by BitLocker.
Just a heads up: if you’ve been running DBAN on SSDs, it might not be the best call since it doesn’t handle secure erasing properly. Try using tools like GParted instead. Just keep your fingers crossed that DBAN hasn't worn out your drive.
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