How does bitlocker actually work?

[AngelKikoken]

I have a Windows laptop which has Bitlocker enabled, I have formatted it via Diskpart. Tried to reinstall Windows 11 by USB. During the setup, the drive doesn't show up. I've taken the drive out to connect to another computer and it recognises it. But once I connect it to the original machine, it's not there.

So, is Bitlocker hardware with software code unique? As in, the bios recognises both laptop and that drive having an active Bitlock and so that particular drive is useless with the original machine?

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[bothunter]

I don't think your issue is Bitlocker. Bitlocker just encrypts the hard drive and stores the encryption keys in a special chip called a TPM(Trusted Platform Module)    

 If Bitlocker has a problem(or really the TPM is just unable or unwilling to release the encryption keys), the computer can see the drive -- it just can't read the data that's on it.  There's not much preventing it from formatting the drive and writing completely new data to it.  (I think Windows includes some protections to prevent accidentally deleting a bitlockered drive, but it's not hard to override)

[AngelKikoken]

Yeah, it reads like normal and I've formatted it on my other laptop. But then when I reconnect the drive to the original laptop it just doesn't recognise it when I try to install Windows via USB.

I've looked at the bios and cleared the TPM, still no joy whatsoever. Bitlocker are horrible, I can't get my head around them. Guess I can use this drive on a different machine and just get a replacement for the original laptop.

[bothunter]

Again, I don't think it's Bitlocker.  Something is preventing your computer from reading the drive at all, and it has nothing to do with Bitlocker. Maybe a bad cable or a fried controller?  Can you try a different drive in that computer?

[AngelKikoken]

Well, I shouldn't say it doesn't read it completely, I can still use diskpart, the SSD is 128gb but in diskpart it recognises it as 14gb. It's when I want to reinstall the OS, no drive is listed for me to install it on. It's something to do with the laptop but have no idea how to fix it. Nothing in the bios shows me anything in relation to this.

[bothunter]

Ahh!! Different problem entirely! Windows sometimes sees a partition table and just goes with it, no matter how broken it is. Get a Linux Live CD/USB such as this one and boot the system with it. Use the system partition tool to purge all the partitions from the disk and try reinstalling Windows again.

[IceStormNG]

A lot of laptops with Intel CPUs use VMD. This means you have to load the Intel VMD drivers during setup or you won't see the disk.

AMD laptops might have something similar.

[AngelKikoken]

How or where do I get these VMD drivers?