To TPM or Not TPM? That is the question...

[JimAbramczyk]

I've seen similar questions, but not a definitive solution to my particular problem.

New Envy Laptop as of January, running Windows 11 Home, 21H2.  No problems until 2 days ago when the computer started asking for the BitLocker recovery key at every restart.  Looking into either HP or MS websites, one solution was to try to disable and then enable Bitlocker using "manage-bde -protectors c: -disable" then "-enable".  The disable worked fine, but upon trying the -enable, it gave an error, "A compatible Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Security Device cannot be found on this computer".

The original problem went away.  I do not have to enter the BitLocker recovery key each restart.  However, the C drive had a Yellow! alert, which I read meant security not enabled.

At the security settings, I found Encryption was on, but had a message, "“Device encryption is temporarily suspended.  Encryption will resume automatically the next time you restart your device."  Restarting did not make this go away.

Checked the BIOS, found TPM Available and Enabled.  Tried turning it off, then on, rebooting each time - no luck.

Device Manager does not see it.

Ran TPM.MSC, got "Compatible TPM Not Found"

I also ran all of the onboard diagnostics with no trouble found.

I unencrypted the drive and the Yellow! went away.  Trying to re-encrypt the drive does not work.

From other posts, it seems that the TPM on my Envy is firmware.  It seems that since my system started as encrypted and could be decrypted, and it was asking for BitLocker recovery, that indeed, there once was working TPM firmware on this machine.

My only guess is that either the TPM firmware was corrupted and not working (although the BIOS sees it), or a recent Windows over-the-air update caused the system not to see it anymore.

My initial problems have been solved.  I don't have to enter the BitLocker recovery key and the Yellow! is gone from my C drive.  However, my drive is no longer encrypted.

HP support tried a few things, gave up, and directed me to paid support (for my 2 month old laptop) for a cool $99.

Is there a solution?  Do I care if my drive is not encrypted?  This is my wife's laptop and is likely never to leave our house for it's useful life.  Thanks for your help!

[Huffer]

Then you do not care if it is encrypted. Full drive encryption largely protects against theft of the device. 

[JimAbramczyk]

 I pretty much agree that encryption isn't necessary, but the technical side of me would like to solve this.

[Huffer]

I would low level format the M.2 SSD using diskpart clean all command and try a clean load of the original factory image from HP Cloud recovery. Then see if you can reinitialize encryption.  I suspect it is something stuck in a hidden partition in the disk so clean all will remove all data from the disk and return it to out of the box pristine condition. I gave up on bitlocker encryption. Nothing but trouble. There are lots of third party encryption apps some of them free.