Corporate login laptop bypass

[smr]

Hi,

Got a laptop from a customer here and I've not had one of these jobs before so I'm wondering if anyone can shed any light on this

Basically he was laid off and they haven't asked for the laptop back so he's keeping it but wants to wipe everything and start again with it so just a format Win install job. Or so you'd think

Even after formatting the hard drive (which is an nvme ssd) and then installing Windows afresh, you get to the setup screen where on Windows 11 you'd bypass network connection with oobe/bypassnro or Win 10 you'd select 'Limited setup' ... well either of those options don't exist, your only choice is to connect to the Internet, and then after doing so it "connects to Microsoft" or something and the next screen is a login for a corporate / company login business organisation username and password.

So this is obviously some sort of bios encryption -

A simple fix would be to replace the hard drive, but given it's been formatted, is this security encryption embedded into the bios/motherboard somehow making trying a new hard drive futile?

Any ideas gladly welcome.

 

[smr]

Thanks very much for the replies. I'm going to tell him I can't fix it, that'll be the simplest thing to do and for him to come and pick it up.

1) I could ask him if he has proof of his entitlement to keep the laptop (but this isn't very good for a business relationship between myself and the customer as it would insinuate a level of mistrust anyway)
2) Just explain that I cannot fix it as it's got this autopilot thing on (I've never heard of this before and I guess the reason why is because such laptops are returned to their respective organisations who have their own inhouse IT departments)

2 is clearly the only option.

 

[smr]

Ok so I clearly overlooked this comment from him, after I told him that despite my efforts I couldn't get this resolved he wrote "How’s that even possible, genuinely. The laptop was originally purchased by myself and I expended it"

Thing is that still takes me back to option 1 above and I don't want to have to say to my customers "prove it"

Unless anyone can think of a delicate way of asking him to prove it - obviously if he did buy the laptop and can prove it's actually his then it may well be worth getting this sorted.

But there again, if he did buy it with his own money, why would the company not remove it? Sounds a bit unfair.