Can not install Windows 8.1 to a Bitlocker Pre-Provisioned volume

Question

Hello,
I'll come straight to the point. What I'm trying to do is to install Windows 8.1 Enterprise to a Pre-Provisioned volume but Windows does not let me do that. The steps I've performed are.
With Microsoft ADK I created me a WinPE media which has the components installed to get the manage-bde command working. I used the article hxxp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824926.aspx for that.
I prepared an USB stick with the manage-bde components on it and booted my test laptop with it.
Started diskpart and used commens in order to get a new clean partition:
Select Disk 0
clean
Create Partition Primary
Format fs=ntfs quick
Assign letter=c
exit
After that I pre-provisioned the volume with the command:
manage-bde -on -used c:
When I check with manage-bde -status it states that:
Conversion Status: Used Space Only encrypted
Percentage: 100
Protection Status: Protection Off
Lock Status: Unlocked
Identification Field: Unknown
Automatic Unlock: Disabled
Key Protectors: None Found
OK. After that I use the net use command to map a network share with the Windows 8.1 x64 Enterprise installation media itself. I execute setup.exe without any parameters.
I can navigate all the way through the dialog "Where do you want to install Windows?". I can see there now "Drive0Partition 1" with a Total size of 119.2 GB and almost as many free space BUT when I select it and click next there comes
only a warning dialog saying:
We couldn't not create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files."
The best description of the problem I've found from the file x:\windows\panther\setupact.log where are lines like:
BLOCKING reason for disk 0 offset bla bla is either "The partition is too small" (????) or "Bitlocker Drive Encyption is enabled on the selected partition".
What I am missing here? Is there a special trick how to get Windows installed on a pre-provisioned drive? I also loaded the correct driver for the disk controller but no help. As soon as I clean the disk and create the partition new without pre-provisioning
I can install Windows without any problems.
Sorry for the long text. Hope someone of you has an idea.
Regards
Robert

Answer 1

We couldn't not create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files."
The best description of the problem I've found from the file x:\windows\panther\setupact.log where are lines like:
BLOCKING reason for disk 0 offset bla bla is either "The partition is too small" (????) or "Bitlocker Drive Encyption is enabled on the selected partition".
Hi,
For this issue,when you assign letter,you need to mark a partition as active.
Using a command line
1.Open Command Prompt.
2.Type: diskpart
3.At the DISKPART prompt, type: list partition
Make note of the number of the partition that you want to mark as active.
4.At the DISKPART prompt, type: select partitionn
Select the partition, n, you want to mark as active.
5.At the DISKPART prompt, type:
active
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Kelvin Xu
TechNet Community Support