[SOLVED] Bitlocked!

[juggle]

I bought a used Dell PC which came with Win 11 on a 2.5" SSD. I immediately removed this, replacing it with a bigger 2.5" SSD on which I installed LMDE, which has been running fine. I subsequently fitted a M.2 128GB SSD in the vacant M.2 slot and this drive too was working fine.

I thought it would be useful to put Win 11 on the M.2 SSD to occasionally run old PROM programmer software, rather than having to fire up my old Windows XP box. I swapped the 2.5" LMDE SSD for the Win11 SSD, intending to install Win 11 to the M.2 drive. It was only after booting the Win11 disk that I discovered that Win11 install requires a Microsoft a/c - which I have absolutely NO intention of creating!
I resigned myself to sticking with the trusty old XP box for PROM programming and replaced the LMDE SSD.

LMDE runs OK, but I now find the M.2 SSD to be inaccessible by any means! Even though Win11 never really got started with installation, I find that this wretched malware has installed "bit-locker" to the M.2 SSD. I am even required to enter a bit-locker password before I can re-format the drive!

I shall spare you the expletive-loaded rant about Microsoft.
I would just like to know if there's any way to get my M.2 SSD back.
It's been about 25 years since the BSoD caused me to move to Linux.

Let this be a warning to anyone else thinking about installing Win 11 alongside Linux.
I'm very, VERY fortunate that my PC can only take one 2.5" disk and my LMDE system didn't get bit-locked.

[MiZoG]

Put back the original Windows ssd temporarily
and disable bitlocker for your new nvme drive or globally following these instructions.

[coffee412]

It was only after booting the Win11 disk that I discovered that Win11 install requires a Microsoft a/c - which I have absolutely NO intention of creating!

I ran into this aggravation with win11 also. Discovered that you can create a local account by selecting 'domain login' when it wants you to setup an account.

[AndyMH]

LMDE runs OK, but I now find the M.2 SSD to be inaccessible by any means!

gparted should be able to delete the existing partitions on the drive, or put a new partition table on it to wipe the drive.

[juggle]

gparted should be able to delete the existing partitions on the drive, or put a new partition table on it to wipe the drive.

That did the trick.
Thank you!