Z790-H and Bitlocker

[vortex1]

I tried to Bitlock C: Drive. It crashed.
Had to clear CMOS as no boot up/BIOS. Then in BIOS made no changes and saved and it would then boot into Bitlocker?!
My normal Windows login corrupted and I had to recover and reset that!

Very scary situation as I thought at one point I'd have to reset everything with Acronis - if I found a way to get into the BIOS!

Had to turn Bitlocker off.
Now everything (except for a few corrupted desktop icons) is back to normal - except I still have to re-configure my previous BIOS settings.

If anyone knows why this happened with Bitlocker and the BIOS, please let me know. Thanks.

ps. I have TPM turned on by default. Prior to me trying to lock C: Drive I had locked my other 2 SSD's, and they are still locked subject to Bitlocker -- (I can get into them with a password so it's ok). But, when I tried Bitlocking the C: Drive, I wasn't able to use a password - only a PIN. Not sure if this information has anything to do with the issue??

[JohnAb · Accepted solution]

I think you'll be better off using Bitlocker on another drive, that's what I do, all of my files are stored on different Bitlocker protected drives and I've never had a problem. I just back those up onto additional Bitlocker protected drives.

If you have corrupted icons now, probably a good idea to reinstall Windows once you've backed up any files you need. For the future, take regular OS backups and then if anything like that happens again, you can restore the entire OS in under 10 minutes. Once you have a good Windows install and a backup, then try Bitlocker again if you want, it should work on the OS drive in theory.

However, if it works differently and you are forced to use a PIN, I'm not sure. It does seem to work that way on a laptop I have, but I did turn Bitlocker off. Having a PIN would worry me because if you can't use a password, I'd be worried about being able to recover the drive if it became corrupted in some way because I'm not sure if it would work in another machine without the same TPM chip. 

Hence, I've never encrypted the OS drive, since my OS drive only has the OS and installed software on it, nothing personal is stored there so no security concerns. Different if using a laptop with only one drive of course. 

[vortex1]

(I clicked on accepted solution instead of reply).

I have now turned off Bilocker on all drives. I have restored the OS (C:) drive using Acronis True Image which I always use to backup after every Windows Update every 2 weeks or so. I still have an issue getting into BIOS - only works if I clear CMOS first then reboot (which defaults all my settings).

I seem to also have identified an issue where I was encoding video and the CPU was reaching and staying around 100°C. It now looks like my CPU is partially broken because the iGPU is not identified in the BIOS. It looks like my Z790-H motherboard remains intact, and I hope the BIOS is ok because the restore didn't sort anything out -meaning it's either a CPU or a board issue.

If my suspicions are correct - all I have to do is replace the CPU and the issues should resolve. If that doesn't sort out the iGPU being recognized and being able to boot into BIOS normally, then I might need to replace the board as well as the CPU - ensuring I use a better thermal performing CPU that doesn't sacrifice on my existing processsor's performance. Could even involve a complete change in architecture from the LGA 1700 socket as I currently have an i7-14700K, because all I've been able to find as an alternative is the Intel Core i5-13600K or 14600K. I didn't originally build my PC in order to drop performance.

Apparently, the K processors are known to have thermal problems and irreversible damage can occur as a result.

I have contacted ASUS support on Saturday, but I probably won't hear anything until Monday.