Posted on 11/22/2023 6:07:04 AM PST by SteveH
thanks for your informative comments.
my comments on your comments follow (please feel free to correct me if i make any wrong statements; i have fairly extensive unix experience and other general computer experience which however may not be of much help when it comes to understanding and dealing with ms windows).
Based on encouragement and direction from an earlier helpful post, I did this and so far it seems to have worked.
i tripped over the part where it said that ms could not help determine the location of the bitlocker code. imho that is a horrible statement to encounter in support documentation. to me, it was equivalent to “the thing you need is somewhere, but we cannot tell you where.” it’s as if ms support cannot be bothered by mere mortal users with support questions in places where the a user may need help with clarification of something in the support procedures.
anyways, i took a snapshot of the bitlocker string that i found under my ms user name. i was surprised that i had a bitlocker code under my ms user name, because i had earlier resolved never to resort to having a ms user name due to the added complexity and dependencies that it entailed along with my own preference for independence from the net, especially during my (frequent) travel.
i had to apply the bitlocker string twice. the first time, it silently failed (i figured this out after waiting about 10-15 minutes for a failure message that evidently never comes. sheesh.). the second time worked quickly (within a couple of minutes iirc).
the laptop then gave me a new problem with my session login password. then it prompted me for the password. i put my old password in. it seemed to accept it, but it suggested that i should consider setting a new password. i entered my old password. it seemed to accept that, but then put me back in the password prompt. apparently the suggestion is not a suggestion but an order. i asked for a new password and it wanted yet another confirmation from my microsoft user account, so back to my cell phone i went to get that. a few tries later, i had overwritten my old password string with the same damned password string (it does not check), i got through the stupid password challenge and back to what seemed to be normal.
i worked online for a few hours and then took a break, closing my laptop. a couple of hours later, i opened the laptop but could not get anything more than a low grade hum (it has an electronic disk), a black screen of death, and a slowly blinking power switch. i tried the lighten screen button with no avail. i tried the control-alt-delete 3 finger salute dozens of times, with no avail. i considered putting it in my car and parking down the street away from my home wifi networks, which i did not want to shut down. i also considered dunking the laptop in a full bathtub of water and bringing it back to costco under the 6 month costco warranty. finally i closed the laptop, deciding to take a chance it was not sending a snapshot of my C drive to unfriendlies in an unfriendly country, and waited a couple of hours.
waiting seemed to work. i figure that the laptop waited until i was logged back in and working for a couple of hours. then the laptop downloaded a new BIOS and.or new device EEPROM image to one of the laptop devices (i did not change anything in my laptop hardware configuration, so it is a vanilla factory laptop). this two hour pause in service occurred with no warning to me, and i am only making a semi-educated guess on the reason for the pause. a warning would have been user-friendly. i would consider it mandatory if i had designed it.
back to the numerous dependencies on the MS user account, is there any procedure i can invoke to remove all of these dependencies? i believe i saw a reference somewhere to a procedure to remove the bitlocker drive encoding. it seemed to require a number of long command string entries into a cmd.exe window while in startup mode (yes? if so, how do i get into startup mode from normal mode?), and waiting a relatively long but unspecified amount of time. without reassurances, it seemed very sketchy. specifics would be useful. if i get rid of the bitlocker dependency, does that get rid of the remaining ms user account dependency? if not, how do i get rid of the remaining ms user account dependency?
i am just guessing that i inadvertently added the ms user account dependency while initializing the laptop for the first time out of the box. i recall going through it quickly. i also recall a previous experience in which i added the ms user account dependency with a previous laptop, while on travel, and it took me several hours to figure out what the problem was (due imho to poor ms windows documentation) and a long support phone call to a hapless support guy who received the full force of my concerns at the other end of the line at some unholy hour of the early morning.
all of my latest problems happened because i received an email message from lenovo (the laptop manufacturer) informing me that a system update was needed/recommended/required. the message seems to have been from my laptop screen since i cannot find it in my regular email account. it had no warnings about any dependencies. i ignored the message for a few days, but then finally gave in and responded yes to the prompt of whether or not to upgrade the system since it seemed relatively benign at the time.
i get the following impressions:
* ms wants to keep track of and sell additional stuff all ms windows users, so it does everything under the imagination to trick users into creating and maintaining an internet online ms user account.
* if a user creates or users a ms user account to install ms windows on a system, some stuff such as the login may become dependent on the account and on an internet connection
* if a user creates or uses a ms user account to install ms windows on a system, ms windows will use the user account to encrypt the system hard drive(s) (even if electronic drives). normally encryption is ok, but there must be an encryption key. this key needs to be kept in a safe place. one place that ms regards as “safe” is in a file stored with the user’s online ms account, if the user created such an account.
* (true??) upon system installation of ms windows, ms may encrypt a system’s hard drive automatically without prompting the user for whether or not to encrypt the drive.
it’s very important to keep copies of the bitlocker string if it is ever created. once it is created, a dependency to it is created which may be exercised during an update. the need for the bitlocker string may occur without any prior warning. one might not have access to the internet when the need may arise. one might forget or misplace or not have access to one’s ms user account string and/or password string when a need for the bitlocker string arises (beware!). one may not be aware that one has incurred a bitlocker string dependency which may prevent updates from succeeding (thus requiring a full system disk wipe and/or a full system re-installation from scratch, losing all of one’s hard drive data).
it’s probably a good idea to have either a hard backup or a cloud backup of one’s system hard drives.
i have had in the past, and will continue to have in the immediate future, a heavy travel schedule, so please keep this in mind if expecting any quick responses from me (thanks).
from the windows button i selected settings and then searched for upgrade in the search window.
i found that i had a recent lenovo software upgrade involving software for the forte sound system. along with this was a lenovo firmware upgrade (1.18.0.0) on the next calendar day (which almost certainly was connected with the previous forte update— while spanning a calendar day, they occurred only a couple of hours apart from each other).
i found that i had a total of 15 upgrades in 3.5 months (about 4.3 upgrades per month). my lenovo firmware upgrade apparently was triggered by the most recent lenovo sound software upgrades. there were previous lenovo firmware and software upgrades, but this was the first upgrade to trigger the need for a bitlocker key string (why??).
* bitlocker seems to be ms-windows-specific
* bitlocker uses a TPM (trusted platform module hardware) (chip) which has encryption/decryption software and storage
https://preyproject.com/blog/bitlocker
* all lenovo computers after 2018 including mine use a TPM chip
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht512598
“Part of the issue (in my not so humble opinion, with my own non-trivial experience in the industry) is that resorting to google (or any other non-ms resource) for simple ms support answers to simple support questions should never be necessary. agreed? good. thanks.”
Embarrassed that you never tried MS support?
I asked Bing Co Pilot.......
I’m sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with BitLocker. Here’s a general flow of how you can recover from this situation:
Self-recovery: The BitLocker recovery password and recovery key for an operating system drive or a fixed data drive can be saved to one or more USB devices, printed, saved to Microsoft Entra ID or AD DS1. If you have saved the recovery password on a USB drive, you can plug the drive into the locked device and follow the instructions1. If the key was saved as a text file on the flash drive, you will need to use a different device to read the text file1.
Self-recovery in Microsoft Entra ID: If BitLocker recovery keys are stored in Microsoft Entra ID, you can access them using the following URL: myaccount.microsoft.com. From the Devices tab, you can select a Windows device that you own, and select the option View BitLocker Keys1.
Helpdesk recovery: If you don’t have a self-service recovery option, the helpdesk should be able to assist you. If the device is Microsoft Entra joined or Microsoft Entra hybrid joined, BitLocker recovery information can be retrieved from Microsoft Entra ID1.
Active Directory recovery: If you’re part of an organization that uses Active Directory, you can check the Active Directory computer object’s properties to retrieve the associated BitLocker recovery passwords1.
Please note that these steps might not apply to your specific situation, and it’s always best to consult with a professional if you’re unsure. If you continue to have trouble, I recommend reaching out to Microsoft Support or a trusted IT professional for further assistance.
> Embarrassed that you never tried MS support?
I read all of the ms support documentation that i could easily find online, i found no flowcharts and no explanations beyond single terse sentences conveying incomplete info which did not anwer my questions and concerns. as for human support, from prior experience my understanding is that it cost $200/hr, and that price is over 10 years out of date.
i wasn’t after flippant self serving quip answers if that is all that you got to offer. (hint: you can go back to amusing yourself now.)
yah, thanks. i suspect that many of the answers such as this one is somewhat slanted toward commercial users. i did read somewhere just an hour ago that bitlocker was not needed for casual users. i would have defined myself as a casual user. however somehow i ended up trying to wade through stuff that was apparently targeted towards commercial/institutional users. i am left wondering exactly how that occurred. i put my conjectures into a previous response of a couple of hours ago. i do intend to follow up with the generic costco help phone number once i get a chance.
another open question is that once i have gone through the pain of pseudo-recovery involving bitlocker, would it make more sense for me to keep the feature, since it does in a sense seem to increase my laptop’s overall security (say for example if the laptop were stolen)? this could be another question for a human service person, or for the consensus of the fr computer intelligentsia collective.
and just for grins imagine being tasked with fixing the problem during thanksgiving, from a tiny hotel room in taipei.
What I wonder s why are you not loading Windows 11 and having problems with Windows 10?
“I read all of the ms support documentation that i could easily find online, i found no flowcharts and no explanations beyond single terse sentences conveying incomplete info which did not anwer my questions and concerns. as for human support, from prior experience my understanding is that it cost $200/hr, and that price is over 10 years out of date.
i wasn’t after flippant self serving quip answers if that is all that you got to offer. (hint: you can go back to amusing yourself now.)”
My #14 links to a comprehensive discussion of the subject by Microsoft.
And thanks for restarting this discussion with your self-serving quip to me this morning.
> My #14 links to a comprehensive discussion of the subject by Microsoft.
I read that but did not respond to it for the sake of brevity since other posts seemed to be more on target.
Here is how i would have responded:
first, i seemed to be in the wrong solution space to begin with since i did not recall specifying bitlocker use. other answers as i mentioned more recently seemed to point in the direction to the effect that bitlocker was not needed for casual users. this seemed to conflict with at least one part of your response.
as for turning bitlocker usage off by editing the registry (using regedit?), i felt and still feel that this would be sketchy for me to attempt. for one thing, changing the registry is reputed to be a somewhat advanced operation, not recommended for casual ms windows users such as i regard myself as being. for another, flipping a registry setting almost certainly does not take instantaneous effect over an entire drive or set of drives. also, what would happen if i attempted to change the registry entry setting, then let the system proceed (to transform the drive/drives dynamically, perhaps), and then have a power outage during the dynamic transformation attempt? IOW, is the registry setting change effectively atomic from a transaction POV?
I just did not feel like going down this rabbit hole from either a technical or support perspective due to its overall sketchiness and the possibility that I would lose the drive.
all of this i somewhat shamelessly ducked due to lack of sleep and lack of time while i was on the move. i am still less than 24 hours back home after a 10 hour flight. 對不對??
(sigh) after about one hour of nominal usage, i got what appears to be commonly called the lenovo laptop black screen of death problem. this apparently occurs when the screen suddenly goes black without any warning, stays black, while the power button lights and stays lit. the three finger salute and variants have no apparent effect. the increase screen light function key has no apparent effect.
the causes (according to a web search) could be any of five or so mutually unrelated reasons (most of which generally have nothing to do with abuse of the hardware or software).
one solution is to push and hold the power button for about 30 seconds (note: this may or may not require disconnecting the power cable; i disconnected mine during the procedure). after 30 seconds release the power button, and the system should reboot.
my system rebooted ok and i am now running successfully for about 10 minutes with no visible problems.
the costco computer concierge phone number is 1-866-861-0450. i’m probably going to call it and ask for advice since i still have about 2 months to go before my 6 month support/guarantee window expires (advice welcome).
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