after cleaning the dust carpet collected on the fan and around it, HD is locked

[YazUrosh]

after performing dust cleanup that required disassembly of my laptop, it doesn’t boot up any more. 

I did try to reinstall the OS but it doesn’t go through. then i check bios HD test and it fails. last but not least its stating HD is locked. how do I unlock it, please help me

it happened before on Pavilion 11-n000sn, but i just let go and get another laptop, but now I’m already stuck with two with the same problem.

Is there a solution to this?

[WAWood]

@YazUrosh 

Not being able to see the PC, my guess is that this model came with BitLocker enabled and also, that you did not go to the trouble to export the key -- which is something you can not do now.

When you opened the case, that caused the problem because you did not disable BitLocker prior to doing that.  You also voided any warranty when you opened the case.

There is no way to recover this now, apart from completely erasing and reinstalling the PC from scratch.

If your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Win10 and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

Here is the link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

[YazUrosh]

Hello WAWood,

thank you for fast reply. I’m not sure if BitLocker is the problem here because I never used it. Also if I boot from MsDART CD all files are seen and accessible on all disk partitions. Problem only persist if i start reinstalling OS. repairing is not possible as program does not recognize previous OS installation, if I start new fresh install i get error message “HD is Locked”.

I do have bios user and master passwords and bios HD lock feature is disabled. Thought OS still does not install.

I also performed bootrec /fixmbr, /fixboot, /scanos and /rebuildbcd but got same problem at next attempt.

[WAWood]

@YazUrosh 

I ran into this on a new Envy X360 and I too, did not install or configure BitLocker -- it just came that way.

My clue was when I looked at the partitions using File Manager and saw little padlock icons for each of the partitions.  When I looked that up, it said that BitLocker was enabled on each of them.  Since the PC is set to unlock these automatically, you won't get any prompts for keys when you use them.