Forum Discussion

KevinRamirez's avatar
KevinRamirez
Bronze Contributor
Mar 28, 2025

24H2 update - running out of ideas.

Thanks for any help and support.
I was doing a clean install of Windows 11 on my laptop using a USB drive. During installation the available partitions were shown. My NVMe drive had the partition for the OS, a partition for recovery (which I deleted), a second recovery drive which I also deleted, and two unallocated drives which I left alone.
I then selected the original OS partition to install Windows 11 onto. However a message was then shown which said I needed to disable Bitlocker before installing Windows 11.
I can no longer return to Windows 11 to disable Bitlocker before installing.
I can using the installation USB get to the cmd (as administrator).
How do I disable Bitlocker so that I can finish the clean install of Windows 11?
Can I use diskpart to format the partition for installation? Will this eliminate Bitlocker?
Is there a way either using cmd or diskpart to disable Bitlocker?
Thank you.
I know enough to get myself in trouble.
Thank you.

configuration

2 Replies

  • Advay-CMD's avatar
    Advay-CMD
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 31, 2025

    It sounds like a unfortunate problem. 

    Do not panic.

    As Mousefluff said bitlocker is on, by default, when you sign in your pc with your microsoft account.

    If you are sure about a clean Install, these steps can be taken:

    Press SHIFT + FN + F10 in windows setup installation for cmd.exe.

    After type in this in cmd: 

    diskpart lis disk sel disk <disk number> clean

    I think this should be enough to clean your disk...

     

    If that didn't work then:

    Go to your microsoft account on any accessible pc.

    Login to your acount.

    Go to https://account.microsoft.com/devices/recoverykey

    Then see your recovery key...

    Now, in the Windows PreInstallation Environment:

    Press SHIFT + F10 for cmd.exe

    Now type:

    manage-bde -unlock C: -RecoveryPassword <Recovery-Key>

    This should work.

     

    Hope this helps.

  • Mousefluff's avatar
    Mousefluff
    Iron Contributor
    Mar 29, 2025

    By default, it is enabled automatically on some SKUs. According to the official documentation, you have to use the command line to disable it, which means pressing SHIFT + F10 on the Setup screen, or just disabling it from within the Windows Preinstallation Environment. If you don't want to disable it, or it uses a password or key that you don't have, and all your personal files are already backed up, then it might be necessary to reformat using diskpart and the https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/cc753770(v=ws.11)#parameters parameter:

     

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/operating-system-security/data-protection/bitlocker/

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/bitlocker/disable-bitlocker#example-1-disable-bitlocker-for-a-volume

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/fsutil-behavior#parameters

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/operating-system-security/data-protection/bitlocker/operations-guide