Stuck at bitlocker recovery and can't get past BSOD. Have recovery key. What's next?

[jhane031]

 

I'm looking for someone who can help! 

What I was doing before the issue: I do recall forcing the desktop to shut down, which may have cause this.

No driver changes or third-party installations prior to the crash.

I'm facing a problem where my HP desktop windows 11 is stuck at the Bitlocker recovery screen whenever I turn the power to my desktop, security policy has changed and can't get past the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) [DRIVER_PNP_WATCHDOG]. I have the recovery key that is correct without a doubt but still can't access my drive, as the next screen leads to that BSOD code after automatic repair. This was happening for about a week now from 24/04/2025.

When attempting to reinstall Windows 11 through the installation media from Microsoft, (as advised by Microsoft support to do, as other options leads to nothing) this is done through a 128GB Sandisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 on a windows 10 laptop that created this bootable drive, to troubleshoot and repair, but it often refuses to work that it says "We were not able to repair your device..".  With also no system points, or system images, or other additional options available. (I'm sure there should be more options, right?) 

When attempting to reinstall Windows 11 on my HP Desktop, I'm prompted to convert my internal drive (that is still encrypted with bitlocker as I'm unable to recover it), I'm prompted to convert my disk from MBR to GPT, keeping in mind that I give up on retrieving my files, I do have a Onedrive backup, but any files that I hadn't saved there is doomed to be loss. Booted into the installation media but got, "The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disk", I cannot convert.

I have also used Ubuntu Live USB, booted into try-mode to try an access the Bitlocker-encrypted drive, but encountered that there is no use, I can go to the startup menu for HP and select options that boot, system diagnostics, information and recovery but nothing other than that. Every time I reboot and enter the correct bitlocker recovery key, the same BSOD happens after a delay.

Any ways to recover any remaining files from my encrypted drive,

possible to reinstall windows 11 to convert to GPT or losing files,

Bitlocker key correct but refused and lead to BSOD,

What should be my next steps?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

If you want to see if you can recover your files and you can get into the BIOS, see if your BIOS has an option to disable secure boot and enable legacy mode..

If it does you can boot from your W11 installation flash drive using the F9 legacy USB boot option which is MBR.

When you get to the part of the installation that asks, 'Where do you want to install Windows, install it over the existing Windows partition and it will create a Windows.old folder.

Then you can explore the Windows.old folder, copy and paste your files to a portable hard drive for safekeeping.

I don't know if you have to enter the Bitlocker recovery key or not but that is how you can access a MBR-formatted drive.

If your PC does not have a legacy BIOS option that gives you a choice of selecting UEFI or Legacy boot sources, you are out of luck as far as recovering any data is concerned.

Go back and enable secure boot in the BIOS.

Your PC should be supported by the HP cloud recovery tool which you can use to create a bootable USB recovery drive that will reinstall Windows, the drivers and the software that originally came with your PC

Here is an info link for how to use the utility:

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Support

You can download the software from the Microsoft Store:

HP Cloud Recovery Tool - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store

You will need to enter your PC's product number in the tool's search window since you have to use the software on another PC.

Your specific model PC's product number is not 1W762AV.

That is a general product number that covers more than a couple of hundred different models.

HP PartSurfer

So, you will need to find the product number for your specific model PC.

After you find the correct product number, you need to also include the #ABU that is on the right of the product number.

You can also clean install W11 and then use the recovery tool on the PC and it will automatically find the product number and you can then use the bootable recovery drive to factory reset the drive.

[jhane031]

Thank you from replying, I will go ahead and try this!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.