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I’ve been stumped by this problem. Here’s the computer’s configuration:

  • Intel i5 CPU
  • ASRock H97 Motherboard (no TPM)
  • 1 x Samsung SSD for boot (Bitlocker encrypted with USB key). Formatted with NTFS
  • 2 x Seagate HDD mirrored using Storage Spaces. Formatted with ReFS
  • Windows 10 Pro 20H2

Every time I try to encrypt drive D:, I get the error “BitLocker Drive Encryption Error”. “can’t encrypt the drive”. “The system cannot find the file specified”.

One thing I found strange is that I’ve had drive C: BitLocker encrypted for some time and also had a fixed drive encrypted the same way before. Since I added the two Seagate drives, I haven’t been able to encrypt any other fixed drives.

I’ve also tried to rename ReAgent.XML as recommended here and that didn’t help: Cannot re-enable Bitlocker

JcMaco
  • 1,140

2 Answers2

2

I found out what was going on when I went to view my System Restore settings. When I was exploring the ReFS volume settings, I inadvertently set Windows 10 in a Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) and several features were not working correctly.

To fix:

  1. Make sure that you do not have this registry key entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MiniNT. If the key is present, delete it.
  2. Run DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth in an elevated command prompt
  3. After the checks are done, run sfc /scannow to make sure all the system files are in good order.

After that, BitLocker will be operational once again for system drives and fixed drives.

JcMaco
  • 1,140
0

The reason in my case was because Windows couldn't find the recovery image partition.

I happened to already have a recovery image created

(if you already have such a partition, skip to step 3)

To create a Recovery partition:

1. Create a partition

Make it least 500Mb (I like to create a 2Gb Partition)

From an elevated cmd (Run as administrator), run diskpart, and then:

list disk
sel disk #  <-- whatever your disk number listed from the last command
create part pri size=2048
format fs=NTFS quick label=Recovery
set id=DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC
ass letter=r
exit

This should create a 2Gb partition and assign it the letter R:

2. Copy the WinRE.wim and the uninitialized ReAgent.xml files

from a windows install media or C:\Windows\System32\Recovery,

to: R:\Recovery\WindowsRE

3. Enable the Recovery Partition,

run cmd as admininstrator:

reagentc /setreimage /path R:\Recovery\WindowsRE /target c:\windows
reagentc /enable
reagentc /info

The output should confirm the recovery partition:

    Windows RE status:         Enabled

4. OPTIONAL: Remove the Drive letter

At this point you could remove the drive letter for the recovery partition. Run the following from diskpart

sel vol r
remove letter=r
exit

Try starting Bitlocker again, this time it should work!

Mikesco3
  • 59