Broken Dell Inspiron

debitcardmayhem

km1500 said:

I wonder why x:  ?

Have you tried disk management to see what volumes you have and what drive letters are assigned?

Pobably because it is the install program running from a usb…..
@J_B if you don’t want the contents then format the disk 
EDITED Of course it is protected by bitlocker which is why it doesn’t show up in the where do you want install windows

J_B

debitcardmayhem said:

Pobably because it is the install program running from a usb…..
@J_B if you don’t want the contents then format the disk 
EDITED Of course it is protected by bitlocker which is why it doesn’t show up in the where do you want install windows

But ... how to format an inaccessible disk? 🤷‍♂️

facade

J_B said:

debitcardmayhem said:

Pobably because it is the install program running from a usb…..
@J_B if you don’t want the contents then format the disk 
EDITED Of course it is protected by bitlocker which is why it doesn’t show up in the where do you want install windows

But ... how to format an inaccessible disk? 🤷‍♂️

The easiest is to remove it put it in a usb adaptor and format it in another computer, it may just pop up the bitlocker message, and you select "use unformatted" then it gives an option to format the drive.

otherwise you have to get the laptop to boot into an operating system you are familiar with and use the tools to format it.

If it is only a tiny drive it would be less trouble to just buy a new reasonable sized one and start with that.

J_B

facade said:

The easiest is to remove it put it in a usb adaptor and format it in another computer, it may just pop up the bitlocker message, and you select "use unformatted" then it gives an option to format the drive.

I have opened up the back but it seems to be an M2 drive (?) which I don't have an adapter for

otherwise you have to get the laptop to boot into an operating system you are familiar with and use the tools to format it.

I'm familiar with windows, but it won't boot in that

Ought I to try Linux? (which I've never used)

If it is only a tiny drive it would be less trouble to just buy a new reasonable sized one and start with that.

It's a 500Mb M2 SSD

Replies in bold above

I have got him to send me the bitlocker recovery key. This works in 'start up repair' type of actions, but still to no avail.

J_B

I've ordered an M2/USB adapter from 'prime' (£9.99)  - will see what tomorrow brings

facade

J_B said:

I've ordered an M2/USB adapter from 'prime' (£9.99)  - will see what tomorrow brings

You did get the right sort?- you likely need nvme, the sata adaptors usually won't switch to nvme and can damage the drive

nvme drives have one keyway, sata have 2. The trouble is I've never seen a socket with 2 keys so you can plug nvme into a sata port.

It is worth making an effort for a 500GB drive, I wouldn't bother with a 128.

I'd imagine that linux would do it, I've never used it.

J_B

facade said:

J_B said:

I've ordered an M2/USB adapter from 'prime' (£9.99)  - will see what tomorrow brings

You did get the right sort?- you likely need nvme, the sata adaptors usually won't switch to nvme and can damage the drive

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B42Q2GKC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

EDIT

Just added this to the order ...

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B42TJ54N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

km1500

On the first diagram, where you have booted from the windows USB stick, can you not just choose 'X Delete' and deleted the bitlockered partition. Then create a new un-bitlockered partition and install there. I assume you don't mind losing whatever data is on that drive?

debitcardmayhem

You shuld be able to run diskpart from the command prompt in the intall repair environment. Google diskpart format disk bitlocker

J_B

km1500 said:

On the first diagram, where you have booted from the windows USB stick, can you not just choose 'X Delete' and deleted the bitlockered partition. Then create a new un-bitlockered partition and install there. I assume you don't mind losing whatever data is on that drive?

Sadly no - if you look closely, you can see it's greyed out