Solved Windows start-up issues - drive locks, pin removal impossible, slow!

So, I did a clean install of windows, and as part of that I removed my data drive to ensure no issues. I then plugged it back in, unlocked with my bitlocker key from my MS account, but now every time I restart it locks again and I have to unlock it! I'm on 11 Home so there's no dedicated bitlocker manager.

At the same time I've been trying to remove the pin/password requirement on startup, using the netplwiz command, but every time I do (and I'm definitely entering the right MS account info) I get a screen (after booting) saying 'unable to connect to service' - I hit enter, and then I get the ghost account issue with two accounts. I log in with my pin, re-enable the password requirement, and the ghost account goes, but same thing happens again when I try to remove the password requirement again!

Plus the whole startup duration is very slow - I'm running on an m.2 drive so would expect it to be 10 times faster than it is.

I'm wondering if all this is related somehow?!

Q. is this drive encrypted
if it isnt then please encrypt the drive

then after it has been encrypted, unencrypt the drive
see if that gives any improvement.

best of luck Steve ..

XxXxX said:

Q. is this drive encrypted
if it isnt then please encrypt the drive

then after it has been encrypted, unencrypt the drive
see if that gives any improvement.

best of luck Steve ..

Click to expand...

It was encrypted - have decrypted it and looks to be working ok. I don't need it encrypted, but it's annoying to have to use a work-around rather than Windows just working! Thanks for the input.