- Messages
- 43
- Location
- Chester U.K.
Hi!,
I have this week recovered from a catastrophic bitlocker failure. I got locked out of my machine/main C drive and despite having and entering the recovery Key was totally unable to restore windows.
Even a Refresh or a full reset to factory settings would not initiate and I was stuck in a loop to the bitlocker key request screen.Could not even repair the O/S with the installation/repair disks. (The repair options were visible, -they just did not work..everything rebooted the machine to the key request again even though the key was correct).
I Finally got back in to windows 8 with the first recovery disk I made when I purchased the system (which was a windows 8 recovery disk - not a windows 8 Pro recovery disk).
I managed to enter my Pro key and activate O.K. and have been merrily downloading my data files from a Livedrive Cloud service I use (a lifesaver!).
And I chanced to look at the disk management screen, This is what I found :-
I assume this is, erm - not good....
Am I right in saying that I have no recovery option at the moment? - it appears that the recovery and OEM partitions are empty.
What can I do to rectify this?
Edit:- Just for info, the PC came with NO manufacturers recovery / installation disks whatsoever - just the unit itself.
its a Lenovo 2561 , 2TB HDD, Core i5 , 8GB RAM bought with Windows 8 pre-installed and a windows 8 Pro upgrade DVD.
Also as an afterthought, - I don`t really want to trust bitlocker with the main drive again after this nightmare so is it possible to create a separate bitlockered data partition on the C drive, away from the system files? or is there a way to protect the system files entirely ?
I have this week recovered from a catastrophic bitlocker failure. I got locked out of my machine/main C drive and despite having and entering the recovery Key was totally unable to restore windows.
Even a Refresh or a full reset to factory settings would not initiate and I was stuck in a loop to the bitlocker key request screen.Could not even repair the O/S with the installation/repair disks. (The repair options were visible, -they just did not work..everything rebooted the machine to the key request again even though the key was correct).
I Finally got back in to windows 8 with the first recovery disk I made when I purchased the system (which was a windows 8 recovery disk - not a windows 8 Pro recovery disk).
I managed to enter my Pro key and activate O.K. and have been merrily downloading my data files from a Livedrive Cloud service I use (a lifesaver!).
And I chanced to look at the disk management screen, This is what I found :-
I assume this is, erm - not good....
Am I right in saying that I have no recovery option at the moment? - it appears that the recovery and OEM partitions are empty.
What can I do to rectify this?
Edit:- Just for info, the PC came with NO manufacturers recovery / installation disks whatsoever - just the unit itself.
its a Lenovo 2561 , 2TB HDD, Core i5 , 8GB RAM bought with Windows 8 pre-installed and a windows 8 Pro upgrade DVD.
Also as an afterthought, - I don`t really want to trust bitlocker with the main drive again after this nightmare so is it possible to create a separate bitlockered data partition on the C drive, away from the system files? or is there a way to protect the system files entirely ?
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8 Poo Edition (& Windows 7 Premium)
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Lenovo 2561 (& a Pavillion H.P.P6)
- CPU
- Core i5 i5-2120 / 3.3 GHz (HP= Core i3-2120)
- Motherboard
- ECS H61 MATX (HP =H61 m/Bd)
- Memory
- 8,077 MB DDR3 1333Mhz SDRAM (HP= Same)
- Graphics Card(s)
- Intel HD Integrated (HP= Palit 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 630)
- Sound Card
- Soundblaster ZxR (Hp= Realtek ALC 656 )
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Dell S2340T/Samsung SA100 (Hp= SA-100)
- Screen Resolution
- 1920 x 1080( HP= Same)
- Hard Drives
- 120GB SSD,2TB 7200rpm SATA II,1.5TB 7200rpm SATA II,USB2 2TB seagate SATA II, USB2 500GB Seagate SATA II, ,USB3 4TB Seagate SATA II , USB3 64GB (Readyboost) Thumb drive, microSD(a) 32GB, microSD(b) 64GB, microSD(c) 2GB in USB adapter (recovery keys),
- PSU
- 240W/(500W)
- Case
- Generic Lenovo(mini Tower)
- Cooling
- Generic single fan(same)
- Keyboard
- Emprex 6310U and Lenovo SK-8861 cordless (Hp=KMO 2004 cordless)
- Mouse
- Tecknet M002 and Logitech T620 Touch mouse & Lenovo cordless (2 workstations) (HP= KMO2002 cordlesss
- Internet Speed
- 100MB
- Browser
- IE11 + Firefox
- Antivirus
- Defender(PC1),McAffee(PC2),Norton 360(PC3).
- Other Info
- I have 3 Systems, this one (lenovo) & the P6 which has nearly identical specs but runs windows 7 (considerably more reliably.)
and a Vista laptop which also has no problems -I actually LIKE vista (ooh - controversial!!)