Solved Game PC is a mess after crash and reinstall windows

Good morning all

A week ago my Game PC crashed and did not boot. Long story short, I reinstall windows 11 and after that reinstall a recent backup.
I did not pay attention to the bitlock on/off selection so all my drives are locked now.
Sadly I did not noticed that so no key to unlock everything.

Due to the reinstall, my system is a mess, all y disks seem ok (all my programs runs without problems like flightsims and games) but my boot disk has now 2 EFI partitions, one 549 mb and one 100 mb.
There is also an partition reserved by system having a drive letter G and a partition of 534 mb not assigned.

I have no idea to solve these problems. Actually the bitlocker problem is the biggest.
As long is the pc run ok, the boot sector mess has no priority I suspect.

Thanks in advance
Nico

Nicolaas_5 said:

I reinstall windows 11

Click to expand...

How? What method - clean install, system reset, re-install over existing system .... ?

If you use Windows Home using a MS account, a clean install enables device encryption on all fixed drives by default now. Your encryption key should be recorded in your Microsoft account online. I believe it's under "devices.". https://account.microsoft.com/
Once you have it, you can turn off device encryption.

Regarding your partitions, We'd have to see a screenshot of disk management to advise on this. Be sure all the columns are expanded.

Since you have access to the computer, search for BitLocker and try to unlock all your drivers. Hopefully it won't ask for a password. If it does see @glasskuter post.

It wont be listed as bitlocker if you use HOME. It will be device encryption. Settings > Privacy & Security > Device Encryption.

No matter how it's called, you should be able to unlock it. Thankfully this auto encryption happens in Windows 11 compliant computers. All of us with unsupported computers are not affected. I hate when Microsoft "knows better" and forces settings without asking. I would prefer a popup window informing is about the new feature and let the choice to us wether to use it or not.

Who, thank you for your reactions.
@ adget, completely new, dl windows 11 install.exe.
@ glasskuter, Found it, I have 3 codes, 2 from 2013 and 1 from 2017. Expected one from 2025. And there is a method to find your key as you said in post #5
And a screenshot of all of the drives in windows. I will try to recover the bitlocker recovery key at ms find bitlocker key.
Many thanks
Nico

You were right spapakons
When I run the unlock in device encryption it works, it take some time tough, more than an hour, but it was successful.
Thanks for the tip.

OK, mark the thread solved so others with the same issue know you have a solution.