Windows 10 Remove write protection from unlocked Bitlocker drive

[Quinn]

I work at a computer repair shop and I finally came across something I cannot get around. A customer brought in a Microsoft Surface Book that has BitLocker protection on it. Windows is corrupt and I am using a windows 10 disk to repair it. I have his BitLocker recovery key so I can unlock the drive. But the drive still has a current read-only state of yes.

I have tried to remove the attributes, clean the drive, format the partitions, do a reset with the windows 10 disk, remove partitions with a bootable of Linux, and more. I cannot get around it. If I try to remove the BitLocker protection, It says there is an error because it is write protected. And I cannot take the drive out due to the risk of cracking the display (Due to the surface books terrible repairability and very strong adhesive). Would anyone on here be able to help me out?

Things I can do: Boot into a windows recovery environment and unlock the BitLocker protected drive.

What I cannot do: Remove read-only attributes, remove the BitLocker protection, clean the drive, delete partitions, reinstall windows, reset windows, or boot into windows.

 

[Neemobeer]

When you say you cleared the attributes, you did so with diskpart?

 

[Quinn]

I tried to with diskpart and there was an error. It won't clear the read-only attribute

 

[Neemobeer]

You unlocked the drive, but did you try decrypting it?

 

[Quinn]

I used: manage-bde -unlock C: -RecoveryPassword "Bitlocker recovery key here"
I then tried to do: manage-bde -off C: and it gives an error saying that it has write protection and cannot turn it off

 

[Neemobeer]

Copy the info from

• diskpart
• select disk #
• attributes disk
• and also the error from attributes disk clear readonly

 

[Quinn]

The disk is Disk 0
Attributes:
Current Read-only State : Yes
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
PageFile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

I'm thinking it's the Current Read-only attribute that's causing problems. And I'm not sure any other way to remove it other than attrib disk clean readonly

 

[Neemobeer]

I think this is an "issue" with booting to the install media. You may be able to remount it RW with the mountvol command

 

[Quinn]

I'll give it a try and post an update

 

[Quinn]

I'm not very familiar with the mountvol command. I'm having some trouble using it. And I don't know if there is really a problem with the install media. I have multiple copies of windows on both flash drives, disks, and external hard drives and have tried them all already just in case. It seems like my problem is with the drive with BitLocker protection.

 

[Quinn]

I'm going to call it quits on it. I'm thinking the drive is just corrupt. It says that the BitLocker metadata is not valid. I'm just going to recommend to the customer that he sends it off to Microsoft for repairs if possible or that we could attempt to replace the drive, but there's always the chance of a cracked display. There's already a very small hairline crack in the corner, so I'm guessing from the experience of phone screen replacements I've done, this one will not go so well. Thanks for the help though!

 

[Neemobeer]

The screens are not super hard to remove. You just need a suction cup and some plastic pry bars, but yeah that's up to you.