You Can Fix the CrowdStrike Bug With a USB Drive

As businesses reopen their shops on the first Monday after the CrowdStrike global IT outage knocked out millions of Windows machines across the globe, some of them are bound to still be wrangling their devices. For tech nerds who've been dreading going back to the office today, Microsoft and CrowdStrike have new solutions that should help the world get back up and running, including the ability to just plug in a USB drive and be done with it.

How to fix the CrowdStrike bug with a USB drive

In a post to its website Saturday, Microsoft released a file for USB drives that can quickly and near-automatically fix downed PCs. It comes with a fix that does all the work for you but requires a BitLocker recovery key (if BitLocker is enabled), as well as one that can bypass BitLocker but needs you to do a bit more legwork.

Download the file here and follow the instructions to create a recovery key, then pick one of the recovery options based on your needs. Most users will be better off with the automatic option, Recover from WinPE, so start there and only move on if you're prompted for a BitLocker key you can't get. If you need but can't get a BitLocker key, use Recover from safe mode instead. It's more involved, but finally offers a way into machines that have otherwise been closed off.

Being able to hand out USB keys that can automatically fix the CrowdStrike bug should be a major boon here, especially since known fixes require each computer to be addressed individually and in person. Still, the USB keys require a bit of effort to set up, so it might be some time until your IT department has enough for your whole fleet. Remote workers might also need to work closely with IT to set up a USB key of their own.

Check the Crowdstrike Guidance Hub

If you're still having problems recovering your PC even with Microsoft's USB key recovery tool-the Recover from safe mode option still requires local administrator rights that users on company PCs might not have-CrowdStrike itself has a guidance hub that collects every possible way the company knows to recover a downed PC. This includes a breakdown of the file at the heart of the outage, how to find it, how to delete it, which PCs are affected and which aren't, how to get BitLocker keys, and links to further guidance from third-party vendors.

While there's little new here, it's a helpful place to keep an eye on as the situation progresses. The hub also opens with the same apology note CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted Friday.