BitLocker: need a key but I never installed it - Windows 10 version 2021

@djkwstas21  Have you tried any other Microsoft accounts that you or anyone else who has ever used your PC might have entered?  I've seen multiple people say they were certain that their BitLocker key wasn't in any Microsoft account and later on they remembered some old account or their spouse's account and found it there.

If you can't find it anywhere, then a regular Windows Update wouldn't cause a Recovery Key prompt, but a BIOS update could cause that, and sometimes BIOS updates can be sent through Windows Update.  You could try using the firmware built-in BIOS flash tool to roll back to whatever BIOS release you were running before.  If you don't know, then you might have to try multiple versions.  But if you're seeing this prompt because a BIOS update caused the TPM's platform integrity check to fail as a result of the change, which is causing it to refuse to release the key, then returning your system to the BIOS version that the TPM expects will cause it to release the key again, and therefore you won't see a Recovery Key prompt.  Normally this is avoided by suspending BitLocker before installing a BIOS update so that the TPM will automatically trust the new configuration after the BIOS update.

If you can't do that either or that doesn't fix it, then you're stuck.  Dell Support won't be able to retrieve your Recovery Key because they won't know it, and there is no way to bypass that prompt except possibly reverting the change that caused this prompt, if that's actually what caused it.  The best that Dell Support could maybe do would be to help you with the BIOS rollback procedure I just described, although I doubt most of them would know how to do that.  So if you can't fix whatever issue caused the Recovery Key Prompt, then hopefully you have a backup of your data, because otherwise your data is effectively lost.  If you don't have a backup, then obviously that's something you should consider going forward, because there are all sorts of scenarios besides this one where a backup might be needed.  A full system image backup would be especially useful in this case because that would allow you to just restore your entire system as it was at an earlier point in time, without encryption, rather than just restoring your personal data.

Hi.

Unfortunately, I had the exact same problem a month ago. I tried every solution put out there and nothing worked. I lost all my data!

I am just in awe to see no official response from Dell on this issue, given the numerous cases out there.

Code of Conduct policy which you agreed to when joining. DELL-Admin>

BitLocker is prompting for a Recovery Key, and you cannot locate the key

Automatic Windows Device Encryption or BitLocker on Dell Systems

Finding your BitLocker recovery key in Windows

@Xabia​   This says it all.
"Code of Conduct policy which you agreed to when joining. DELL-Admin> "
No fix for a common problem where users loose all their data with no warning..  Sounds like a great place to buy a computer.