So, it has been about a full week since I have been trying to setup hardware encryption on a Samsung 990 Pro 1To as well as a Samsung 980 Pro 2To, both slotted in an ASUS ProArt Studiobook (H7600ZX).
Please bear with me as I am aware of my very limited knowledge in this specific field of computer science...
I have tried so many things that I pretty much lost count at this point, even while taking notes on the side:
Some notes to lay down some known facts:
My BIOS/UEFI is up to date
My SSDs firmware is up to date
My Windows 11 iso is the latest available
I do not seem to have any "BlockSID" related options in the bios
Whenever I used the PowerShell commands to disable BlockSID and rebooted I was never greeted by a screen acknowledging the commands unlike I've seen in various forum posts
I did a "secure erase" of my drives too many times for me to even count by now (on Samsung Magician my OS drive health stats show a 2To written on what was a brand new drive last week and only had Windows installed multiple times and to then be erased again and again...)
Whenever I tried to force BitLocker to use Hardware encryption by disabling Software Encryption fallback through either registry edits or group policies, it always gave me an error as it wasn't able to encrypt the drives
Samsung Magician's "Encrypted Drive" is and has been stuck at "Ready to enable" no matter what I tried/did
I tried several things that may have no correlation and didn't seem to change anything:
Resetting TPM keys, my reasoning being that maybe something saved in it that kept the drive in "Ready to encrypt" even after a "secure erase" (might have been useless so I restored them)
Trying to use the PowerShell commands to act on the "BlockSID" was a nightmare since as it allegedly resets after each reboot, how am I supposed to install Windows with it still disabled...?
Any and every idea/advice/knowledge on the matter is deeply appreciated!
N.B.: It's past 5am here and my brain is fried so I will complete and update the post after some rest...
In the meantime here's a few of the source material I've come across trying to troubleshoot the issue:
EDIT:
I also read the following, which made me think that this may be an issue related to my laptop's motherboard:
Source: Enable bitlocker hardware encryption without reinstalling Windows 10 pro - Super User
How do I check if my laptop's motherboard supports this feature?
The official manual doesn't seem to talk about encryption at all: 0409_E19193_W7600Z_H7600Z_A.pdf (asus.com)
On the manufacturer's website the specs listed regarding security lack any meaningful related information: