Bitlocker Issues - Gimme back my space!

Hey guys,

So I recently had to give my laptop in for repairs, and before I did so, I had encrypted one work partition using Bitlocker (Win 7 Ultimate x64). Unfortunately for me, those idiots formatted my system and installed Vista on it (came with the laptop). When I got it back, I saw that my encrypted partition was gone. I put back Win 7 on the computer, but now it's not showing me the partition still, and in disk management, all I get is "Free Space" that I can't do anything with (i.e. repartition or use in any way). I've tried running Bitlocker again, but it doesn't recognize any encrypted partition on the laptop anymore.

I have the data all backed up, so that's not an issue. I just wanna be able to make use of my disk space again. I googled the issue as best as I could, but I couldn't find any real solution that applied to me. Most of them called for the 48 bit key that I'm supposed to have, but I don't think Bitlocker gave me any key. I just created a password that I used to unlock the drive on every boot, and I still have that.

Any suggestions??

Yes they gave you key.....you probably thought you would never use it !!!
The key is given to you at the time you first set it up your system and password.

That said, the only thing I can think of, is to clean your hard drive and do a complete re-installation of your software.