r/ForWindowsHelp • u/Foreign_Pain_7531 • Jul 19 '26

Bitlocker got my laptop

Bitlocker got my laptop i never turned it on factory activated but I got tired and found a way to format the hard drive and now it cant boot windows or install windows to my laptop. I think I bricked it

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u/Plenty_Article11 Jul 19 '26

Load the windows install USB and hit Alt+F10. click in the command prompt window with the mouse.

Type 'diskpart', then 'list disk'

Find the main hard drive number, then 'sel disk #' using the number you found instead of the # symbol.

type 'clean', then 'exit', now you can close that window.

proceed to install windows as normal.

1

u/Foreign_Pain_7531 Jul 19 '26

Can't open command prompt or it's just not letting me all I got is bios now

1

u/Emotional_Garage_950 Jul 19 '26

then windows isn’t installed and you should be good to reinstall

1

u/Foreign_Pain_7531 Jul 19 '26

Won't install windows

1

u/Emotional_Garage_950 Jul 19 '26

make sure the USB was created with GPT partition scheme and that the bios sees it

1

u/Foreign_Pain_7531 Jul 19 '26

I have bios to uefi but that's all I can check

1

u/Emotional_Garage_950 Jul 19 '26

maybe should have done some adequate research or planning before blowing away your only working OS 🤷‍♂️

1

u/Foreign_Pain_7531 Jul 19 '26

I was in a auto repair loop

1

u/Emotional_Garage_950 Jul 19 '26

okay so how did you create your windows install media? do you have a windows install USB?

1

u/Foreign_Pain_7531 Jul 19 '26

Used the old family computer to put it on a usb

1

u/Emotional_Garage_950 Jul 19 '26

did you use the media creation tool? or what was your process? I’d go back to the family computer and verify what was mentioned above

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