unable to factoy reset computer, windows RE cannot be enabled on a volume with Bitlocker Drive Encryption enabled.

Question

Hi there,
I am trying to factory reset my surface so I can sell it. I have continually received a message saying that recovery environment was unable to be found even though I have created and inserted my USB with recovery media.
When using CMD and typing reagentc/info and reagentc/enable I receive this message:
REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>reagentc/enable
REAGENTC.EXE: Windows RE cannot be enabled on a volume with BitLocker Drive Encryption enabled.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Any advice on how to resolve this? My device currently says there is no bitlocker enabled.

Thanks,
Alaina

Answer 1

When cleaning a drive before resale you can use diskpart clean or clean all.

The clean all (secure erase) is best to delete data.

It will take many hours for clean all and it can run overnight.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/85819-erase-disk-using-diskpart-clean-command-windows-10-a.html

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Answer 2

Hi Alaina,
Which model of Surface is this?
All the best,
J

Answer 3

Hi, thanks for the responses. I was able to figure it out, my computer was encrypted and once I decrypted it I was able to enable the recovery environment.