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Surface Laptop 2 with BitLocker, cannot login normally

  • Device : Surface Laptop 2
  • OS : Windows 10 20H2 ( attempted upgrade to 21H1)
  • Upgrade Fail cause: Battery died before updating fully
  • Possible Repercussions : User Profile Corrupted , Windows Corruption or full Disk Corruption

A year ago I was tasked with fixing this Surface Laptop 2. I was told that it had powered down during an update and now you cannot login with your PIN.

I did my Diagnosis which you can find in the OneNote

If you cannot access the OneDrive I'll write a TLDR:

  1. Windows Hello face recognition is not working, neither is the correct password being registered
  2. You cannot boot into safe mode by any of the methods listed by MSFT
  3. I have tried every diskpartand then attributes disk clear readonly, regedit ( write protection DWORD 0,Storage Policies) and even tried chkdisk.
  4. Tried manage-bde , repair-bde to remove the BitLocker encryption ( throws error device is write protected.
  5. Tried wiping the drive with Hiren PE Boot CD and all of its tools
  6. Tried using the admin cmd to make a user using : net localgroup administrators User /add
  7. Tried booting into a live Windows 10 USB and getting into control panel and removing bde.
  8. Recover boot options don't lead anywhere.
  9. Cannot Install a new version of Windows ( write protected).
  10. I have the BitLocker Recovery key but with that I am only able to read contents and copy them at a slow pace. However this is of little use to me as the data is not relevant now and I just want my Laptop back.

I have been on support calls with 5 different Microsoft engineers and they couldn't give me a solution. I eventually close the case with them but the laptop wasn't fixed

I have only one last resort to this problem : replace the physical SSD with a new one.

Can anyone help me getting back my laptop. Is there any chance to get it with the data too?

Dave M
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Lucifer
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  • Are you able to enable the built-in Administrator account by using and booting to a 20H2. Enabling the built-in Administrator account does not require any permissions just the ability to boot into the WinPE. – Ramhound May 09 '22 at 11:41
  • Well I did try that but I cannot do anything on the cmd with it Also, If you're talking about if I can login into that built in admin , well no , I can't. :( – Lucifer May 09 '22 at 11:49
  • Even if you boot to the WinPE contained on the installation disk? – Ramhound May 09 '22 at 11:57
  • Well , I cannot do so with the WinRE , but I can try with the live installation or the HirenBoot CD PE. Will that do? – Lucifer May 09 '22 at 12:01
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    Why exactly can’t you boot to a Windows 10 ISO? My suggestion only works with the ISO. – Ramhound May 09 '22 at 12:02
  • I can boot into a windows 10 iso, but I thought you meant windows RE, which comes preinstalled with a windows installation. – Lucifer May 09 '22 at 12:15
  • Try the suggestion of booting to the ISO, and using its internal capability, to load the registry hive and enable the built-in Administrator account – Ramhound May 09 '22 at 12:29
  • Sure, I'll do that – Lucifer May 09 '22 at 17:37
  • Hey @Ramhound, I did all the steps on 2 machines. ( one is the Surface Laptop 2 : affected machine, other is my laptop : Surface Laptop 3.)

    I was able to activate the default admin in my unaffected device , but in the Surface Laptop 2 ( the device for which I started the thread) I cannot see any Administrator account even after loading the SAM hive in C: drive

     – Lucifer May 11 '22 at 06:34

0 Answers0