BitLocker Issue after Updates Surface Book 2

Anonymous
2018-08-06T12:04:27+00:00

A few months back I purchased the new Surface Book 2 for a bit over 3,000 EUR. I had high hopes that as Microsoft knows this hardware inside out (just like Apple does with their MacBooks) I would not anymore have to go through the usual driver issues and what not but instead have a nice, reliable machine at hand that would make my everyday work life easier, not harder. 

1. Sleep of Death

Before my holiday I then started using my old Dell notebook again, as there was no way, I could put this 3,000 EUR Surface Book 2 to hibernate (or sleep! - both did actually not work) without having to do press the power button thereafter for 20 sec or so and hardresetting the thing to wake up. It seemed to be the (what seems to be quite common actually!) sleep of death issue. In light of the many users seeming to have the same issues I was hoping Microsoft would get on to a firmware update during my vacation and all would be solved upon my return. In fact, after my return this morning there were about 20 or so updates that got installed after I powered the SB2 up, amongst them a firmware update.

2. Laptop Bricked after Update - for good!

After installing and restarting I then had this issue: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfbook2-surfupdate/surface-book-2-bricked-after-latest-firmware/06fb11b2-4eb2-4141-9cd1-1e02d54afd78 - A blue screen with a prompt to enter the BitLocker key. Well, I looked it up and seemed to have recovered the key in my MS account (luckily! as other users seemed not to be so lucky as can be read in the link above). The (almost funny by now) thing is, that my keyboard does not work. My touchpad works just fine, I can "change keyboard layout" or "skip this drive" (obviously of little use, as this drive is my system drive with my Windows installation on it). But when I click into the blank field to enter the key, my keyboard does not respond at all and I cannot enter a key.

3. Excel Pixelated Issue with Surface Dock

Did I already mention how much I like the idea to have my two 1080p monitors hooked up to my laptop via Surface Dock with just one magnetic cable? Well, Excel becomes almost unreadable and in general the (text) image quality is poor compared to my old Dell, which has a HDMI and a Mini Display port so that I can hook up the two displays directly. This is sad...

Microsoft, seriously? I had such high hopes that (after investing 3,000 EUR) I would finally get a machine that would give me the same reliability as my Mac Book Pro. You cannot ask these prices, offer a super fancy top of the nodge notebook and then have issues like this. I mean, my laptop is bricked! I am having nothing but issues with the thing, can't even close the lid (to slee or hibernate) without recovering all my files as the bloody thing goes into a sleep of death. WTF is wrong with this thing ... I thought the old days of bootable CDs (or USB sticks nowaday) were kind of over by now... especially after paying this price!

Any ideas how to get around this w/o investing half a day to re-install Windows and all my programs?

Had I not started to like the new Windows 10 and have many programs that need Win, I think I'd already be back to a Mac Book. 

Thanks for your help in advance.

Moved from: Windows 10  / Windows update, recovery, & backup

Surface | Surface Book | Install and update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2018-08-22T15:41:28+00:00

The Surface BitLocker Protector Check tool is now available to verify that the BitLocker settings are properly configured on your Surface Book 2 13” NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 and to help ensure that future updates go smoothly on your device.

For more information, please view our Known issues and additional information about Surface Book 2 article.

Updated 11/2/2018

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-08-07T01:39:49+00:00

    I've had the same issues as NickHill5, but I do not have the technical skills to try all of those things, and frankly I'm still not totally sure that whatever he did worked(?). I thought this update was supposed to *improve* reliability. So frustrating. Microsoft, please fix this.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-08-07T01:32:50+00:00

    Hi Nick,

    Thank you for the update I am always learning put this one on the books for next time.

    Regards,

    Linnell

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-08-06T20:06:39+00:00

    Hi Nick,

    So booting to USB and deleting partition worked. That's a great! From what I have read if you try to install without deleting partition you'd run into the same problem.

    Regards,

    Linnell

    Thanks Linnell

    Except I was never able to boot to the USB. Instead, I ran command prompt, fro the prompt. logged to D: & just ran setup.exe

    Within setup, I had to delete & recreate the partition.

    As it stands, I have rebuilt, but I think that the relationships to the other partitions is broken. Bitlocker will not activate & I doubt that refresh would work.

    Nick

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-08-06T19:54:55+00:00

    Hi Barb,

    I shutdown and restarted and the problem does not repeat. I have also just run the Surface Diagnostic tool, not sure if it took any action.

    On the need to enter the Bitlocker Key,

    The first time I needed to enter the key was after a firmware update, entered the key once and got through. Based on the Bitlocker message it seemed like there was a problem with keyboard settings.

    The second time was after resetting the SB, by pressing the on/off button for 20 seconds from a shutdown state, was asked twice in succession for the key before getting through. I was resetting to respond to a problem with the SB not waking up after hibernating (resetting solved that problem a few months ago after updates were installed).

    Again, all of these problems started after installing updates a couple of days ago. I did notice that before the updates were installed there was a message in red indicating "a policy issue", on the windows update page, I have never seen that before and assumed that windows would manage this. I do change keyboard language occasionally, switching between English US and English Canada. I went to the keyboard settings page and noticed that windows was "searching" for the English Canada Language Pack.

    My concern is getting stuck in a "Bitlocker key entry loop", and losing use of the SB.

    Can I just Turn Bitlocker Off in settings, and leave it off, without creating abnormal system behaviour?

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