Question Windows 11 Reinstall on old SSD removed from Laptop

[winston1979]

Hi all,

Is there a way of reinstalling windows 11 to a hard drive that has Windows 11 already on it without wiping away any data?

My previous laptop died, I was able to get the SSD out and put it into the 2nd bay on my new laptop however it will not boot up, it's asks for a bitlocker encryption key which I enter then gets stuck on the repair stages.

Any ideas on how I can get this to work without writing over the files already on there?

 

[dwd999]

Hi all,

Is there a way of reinstalling windows 11 to a hard drive that has Windows 11 already on it without wiping away any data?

My previous laptop died, I was able to get the SSD out and put it into the 2nd bay on my new laptop however it will not boot up, it's asks for a bitlocker encryption key which I enter then gets stuck on the repair stages.

Any ideas on how I can get this to work without writing over the files already on there?

Your setup is not clear; are you saying that you have a new laptop with 2 separate drives? If yes, can you not boot from the new good drive and access the data files on the old bad drive and copy the files to the new drive? Alternately you could mount the old bad drive in an external enclosure and access the data files from your new laptop and copy them there.

 

[winston1979]

Your setup is not clear; are you saying that you have a new laptop with 2 separate drives? If yes, can you not boot from the new good drive and access the data files on the old bad drive and copy the files to the new drive? Alternately you could mount the old bad drive in an external enclosure and access the data files from your new laptop and copy them there.

Sorry, I might be over complicating my question, I'd like to repair a hard drive that has windows on it but currently won't boot, I'm guessing there's an issue with the hard drive and was wondering if there is a way of repairing that particulary hard drive without losing the programs on it.

1 laptop 2 ssds inside, 1 works and the other just won't boot up, asks for Bitlocker Key, even when enter the options to repair do not work.

Cheers

Winston

 

[USAFRet]

You can't reinstall the OS and keep the applications and personal data on it.
And BitLocker involved makes it impossible. Thats kind of the whole idea behind BitLocker.

Now...give us a clearer explanation of what exactly happened, what you have, and what you want the end state to be.

 

[winston1979]

You can't reinstall the OS and keep the applications and personal data on it.
And BitLocker involved makes it impossible. Thats kind of the whole idea behind BitLocker.

Now...give us a clearer explanation of what exactly happened, what you have, and what you want the end state to be.

 

[SkyNetRising]

My previous laptop died, I was able to get the SSD out and put it into the 2nd bay on my new laptop however it will not boot up, it's asks for a bitlocker encryption key which I enter then gets stuck on the repair stages.
Any ideas on how I can get this to work without writing over the files already on there?

Do not boot from your old drive.
Boot your laptop normally. To access old drive you'll need bitlocker key.

If you don't have it saved somewhere, you may be able to find it in your microsoft online account.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows-6b71ad27-0b89-ea08-f143-056f5ab347d6

After you have unlocked bitlocked drive, remove bitlocker encryption.

 

[General_Cool]

Sorry, I might be over complicating my question, I'd like to repair a hard drive that has windows on it but currently won't boot, I'm guessing there's an issue with the hard drive and was wondering if there is a way of repairing that particulary hard drive without losing the programs on it.

Is the hard drive not showing at all or just not booting? Do you have the Bitlocker key? If its not showing anything at all good luck getting anything off of it. Even worse if you don't have the key.

 

[winston1979]

Ok here goes.
My questions, can bit locker be removed, all the keys are back-up via my email.

The aim is to repair the D drive so that it operates as a working operating system but if I remove the C drive this does not happen even when it asks me for the bit-locker code, it goes so far before it say no.

The question about reinstalling windows is more of a case of is there another way to repair that D drive using a window set up usb that I may not be aware of.

I've attached an image of the hard drives in the laptop and what is on the one that I need to fix.

Now ironically what I've noticed is even if you do not know the password log on to an external drive that has been removed from a laptop, you can still enter the work on the drive via D:\Users\Winston, yes it did say something about security but I left it 10 mins and it loaded and I was able to save the work.

Now the programs loaded in this hard drive were never backed up so if I was able to load the hard drive as the operating system and then back them upto the cloud.

Does this make any sense?

I've attached a picture of the set up
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4z3hq83lq5nxh0mx2tni8/Forum.jpg?rlkey=c9jae7jwio9yqgpy61issfqqt&dl=0

 

[SkyNetRising]

So - you can access your bitlocked drive.
Then remove bitlocker encryption from it.

Control Panel\Bitlocker Drive Encryption

Encryption removal is a long process. You have to be patient.

But even after encryption removal it doesn't mean, you'll be able to boot from the drive on a different computer.

 

[USAFRet]

Now ironically what I've noticed is even if you do not know the password log on to an external drive that has been removed from a laptop, you can still enter the work on the drive via D:\Users\Winston, yes it did say something about security but I left it 10 mins and it loaded and I was able to save the work.

Is that with THIS drive?

Or some other thing that may not be BitLocker?

 

[winston1979]

Do not boot from your old drive.
Boot your laptop normally. To access old drive you'll need bitlocker key.

If you don't have it saved somewhere, you may be able to find it in your microsoft online account.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/finding-your-bitlocker-recovery-key-in-windows-6b71ad27-0b89-ea08-f143-056f5ab347d6

After you have unlocked bitlocked drive, remove bitlocker encryption.

Hi,

So previously when I did boot from drive it shows me an Key id which I found via my microsoft online account, I entered that and it allowed me to go to options such as repair drive, safe mode, command etc.

me other thing that may not be BitLocker?

That has been with any drive that I've removed from any previous laptop which I thought was odd considering that when you need to login with a password but YES with this drive in particular it has worked too.

 

[winston1979]

So - you can access your bitlocked drive.
Then remove bitlocker encryption from it.

Control Panel\Bitlocker Drive Encryption

Encryption removal is a long process. You have to be patient.

But even after encryption removal it doesn't mean, you'll be able to boot from the drive on a different computer.

Yes I can access the drive and have already removed the work from it, just need to figure out how to remove the encryption as this may help me get further with trying to boot the hard drive, I understand there will be incompatibilities with the drivers etc but at least it should allow me to start in safe mode.
The encryption options I have found via the control panel only allow me to back up the key to hotmail, save the key or print the key.
Am I missing something or gone to the wrong options.

Cheers

 

[USAFRet]

Hi,

So previously when I did boot from drive it shows me an Key id which I found via my microsoft online account, I entered that and it allowed me to go to options such as repair drive, safe mode, command etc.


That has been with any drive that I've removed from any previous laptop which I thought was odd considering that when you need to login with a password but YES with this drive in particular it has worked too.

Firstly, do NOT try to boot from this.

But the BL thing can only happen with your MS account and the stored BL key(s).


If you can access the data on this drive, then copy any personal data from it, to some other storage device.
Ignore applications and the OS. Those are irrelevant.
Personal data. And not the Libraries they may live in, just the files.

 

[winston1979]

Firstly, do NOT try to boot from this.

But the BL thing can only happen with your MS account and the stored BL key(s).


If you can access the data on this drive, then copy any personal data from it, to some other storage device.
Ignore applications and the OS. Those are irrelevant.
Personal data. And not the Libraries they may live in, just the files.

The data was removed but I did want to log back onto the drive to back somethings up but if this isn't possible then I may just give up, it's a 4tb ssd that I was going to eventually format and use as the main one so I may have to celebrate the fact that I have my work and take the hit on the programs.

 

[winston1979]

Yes I can access the drive and have already removed the work from it, just need to figure out how to remove the encryption as this may help me get further with trying to boot the hard drive, I understand there will be incompatibilities with the drivers etc but at least it should allow me to start in safe mode.
The encryption options I have found via the control panel only allow me to back up the key to hotmail, save the key or print the key.
Am I missing something or gone to the wrong options.

Cheers

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/as4q...ed-2.jpg?rlkey=p318f4lt8uhutayxady53f57z&dl=0
I seem to be missing some options here which I've seen on videos I've watched on youtube.

 

[USAFRet]

The data was removed but I did want to log back onto the drive to back somethings up but if this isn't possible then I may just give up, it's a 4tb ssd that I was going to eventually format and use as the main one so I may have to celebrate the fact that I have my work and take the hit on the programs.

Generally, programs live and die with the OS.
You can't just extract Program X and apply it to some other OS installation.

 

[USAFRet]

The bottom line takeaway from this should be....Have a good backup. Full drive, just your personal files, whatever...

 

[winston1979]

The bottom line takeaway from this should be....Have a good backup. Full drive, just your personal files, whatever...

Yes defo, the work is all saved but I just won't be able to back up the programs and settings I had, it's not the end of the world I guess.

 

[winston1979]

In the end even with the bit locker key I got the blue screen of death code inaccessable_boot_device so I guess my journey ends there.
Thank you all for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes defo, the work is all saved but I just won't be able to back up the programs and settings I had, it's not the end of the world I guess.

That can only come with a full drive backup.
Which is only really applicable to the original laptop or desktop. You couldn't move that to a different laptop and hope it 'just works'.

OS and applications can be easily reinstalled. Your personal data cannot.

 

[winston1979]

That can only come with a full drive backup.
Which is only really applicable to the original laptop or desktop. You couldn't move that to a different laptop and hope it 'just works'.

OS and applications can be easily reinstalled. Your personal data cannot.

I have done previously but not with drives where bitlocker was involved, a quick windows update would resolve any driver issues but I'm speaking about the days of windows 7 etc.

 

[winston1979]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bgggbl6xgc2wtpzjxz0df/Sorted.jpg?rlkey=miafu5hmawj0pevuqcwvfq254&dl=0I've done it, I was able to get the drive to load up, I had to change something in the bios (storage setting I believe) however the original hard drive won't load windows but when I access it via explorer it just asked me for my bit locker code and allowed me in, just doing a windows update to get the correct drives then I can do what I'd planned to originally.

 

[winston1979]

That can only come with a full drive backup.
Which is only really applicable to the original laptop or desktop. You couldn't move that to a different laptop and hope it 'just works'.

OS and applications can be easily reinstalled. Your personal data cannot.

Not sure if I mentioned it but I worked it out, I had to go into the bios and change something in the storage tab, I believe the hard drives run on 2 different options.