Storage Spaces, BitLocker not accepting recovery key

Richard Pope 1 Reputation point
2020-08-27T10:16:45.297+00:00

As a bit of context, I have a server running Server 2019 with a storage pool using local hard disks, been running fine for a year or so. Previously replaced disks without any issues.

At the end of last week, I needed to upgrade a disk, so I added the new disk, marked the old disk for removal, waited for the pool to heal etc, then on Monday I removed the old disk, then increased the size of my virtual disk and all seemed well.

Approx 24 hours later, all the shares on my virtual disk were unavailable.

Logged onto the server, wondering if something had gone wrong with the storage pool but all the disks were present and showing as healthy, the storage pool seemed happy, but I noticed that drive D: (where my virtual disk is usually mounted) wasn't showing.
20873-image.png

Looking in Disk Management, it says the disk is offline because it is out of capacity:
20891-image.png

In server manager, it also shows as offline:
20815-image.png

But if I try to bring it online, I get prompted that the disk is bitlocker-protected and I need to provide my 48-digit recovery key. I don't remember bitlocking the storage pool drive, though I do remember bitlocking the OS drive... and if I check where I store my recovery keys, sure enough there is a key with the correct ID:
20796-image.png
20901-image.png

But... If I enter the recovery key via the UI it says "This key doesn't match this drive" and if I try via Powershell I get: 

ERROR: An error occurred (code 0x80070057):  
The parameter is incorrect.

Which I assume means the same as the error in the UI.

On a whim, I tried increasing the size of the virtual disk slightly just in case the error in Disk Management was somehow relevant, but that made no difference.

Given that the storage pool was fine for about 24 hours after I'd finished replacing the drive, it seems unlikely (though not impossible) that that is the cause, but there was an OS update on Monday and another on Tues (KB4565349 and KB4571748).

KB4571748 I installed on Tuesday after I noticed the above problem, and I did so after reading posts about people previously having issues with bitlocked drives not accepting their recovery key, but then it working after installing an update, so I figured I may as well give it a go (though I wasn't that hopeful it would work).

I could uninstall the latter, but KB4565349 doesn't appear in the uninstall list so it looks like I can't remove that one.

One other small oddity, though maybe related to the fact it's on a Storage Pool rather than being a "normal" disk, is that it doesn't show in the Bitlocker UI:
20826-image.png

I have no idea why I enabled bitlocker on this drive and like I mentioned, I don't remember doing so even though I must have given that I have the recovery key, but either way it seems wrong that:

  1. Bitlocker could just break out of the blue
  2. The recovery key provided by Bitlocker wouldn't work

I'm at a loss of what to try next! I've read countless blog posts and forum threads, but found nothing that's helped :(

Windows Server 2019
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A Microsoft server operating system that supports enterprise-level management updated to data storage.
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4 answers

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  1. MTG Marinetechnik 356 Reputation points
    2020-08-27T13:11:56.13+00:00

    "The disk is offline, because it is out of capacity" should be looked at before suspecting bitlocker.
    Are you sure that there's no problem with free space?

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  2. Richard Pope 1 Reputation point
    2020-08-27T16:46:06.663+00:00

    Well, I just replaced a 4TB disk with a 14TB disk, so the storage pool itself should have plenty of space.
    The pool shows:
    20906-image.png

    As you can see from the first image in my original post, only 13.9TB out of 21TB is used within the virtual disk.

    So I can't see where any capacity issue might be - the virtual disk has capacity, and the virtual disk is smaller than the space available within the pool?

    I could try adding the old 4TB back in on top of the new 14TB drive, but the pool already seems to have plenty of spare space?

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  3. MTG Marinetechnik 356 Reputation points
    2020-08-28T12:29:17.667+00:00

    Hm. I am y experienced with bitlocker (13 years of constant usage in a whole network) and I can assure you that this "key does not match" does not happen unless there is a problem on a deeper level, thus, I was suspecting the space. I would still google anything you can find about that error message "The disk is offline, because it is out of capacity"

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  4. Richard Pope 1 Reputation point
    2020-08-28T18:19:51.897+00:00

    I have a resolution, though I'm still slightly confused!

    I added the old 4TB disk back into the storage pool and then tried bringing the disk back online again. It again asked for the recovery key, but this time accepted it, and once the drive came online a bitlocker dialog popped up saying that the drive was only 97% encrypted.

    I've now turned off bitlocker on this drive.

    Once it's decrypted I'll try removing the 4TB drive again and see what happens.

    Maybe you're right and capacity somewhere was the issue? But I still can't work out where! Hopefully with bitlocker off, it might be a bit easier to work it out

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