Secondary drive locked with Bitlocker after factory reset

I can't account for this.  I do know that some Dell systems ship with BitLocker "prepped", and if you choose to link your Windows logon account to a Microsoft account, BitLocker is automatically enabled because the Recovery Key is backed up to the Microsoft account you linked with.  Unfortunately the user is never notified that this has happened OR that they can access their Recovery Key from their Microsoft account, and even the Recovery Key prompt if they ever see it doesn't suggest that.  I think it's a really bad implementation of a decent idea (protecting user data).  However, all of that only ever applies to the OS partition.  For any other drives, including other partitions on the same physical disk, BitLocker has to be manually enabled, and if you go through the regular wizard rather than using something like PowerShell, you are FORCED to back up the Recovery Key before encryption will enable.  In addition, the only way your secondary drive could have been locked without you realizing it would have been if it had been enabled for auto-unlock on that system, but that would require your OS partition to also be encrypted with BitLocker, since any auto-unlock keys get stored on that partition.  But auto-unlock would also have to be manually enabled.  And BitLockered partitions have a lock icon shown over the drive icon when you view them in the "This PC" view of Windows Explorer.  Do you ever recall seeing that?

For a moment I thought this might have been a case of malware or ransomware encrypting your secondary drive, but it doesn't seem likely that it would also have enabled auto-unlock so you wouldn't notice this problem until you wiped your OS partition (and therefore the auto-unlock key).  It seems more likely that it would have encrypted your secondary drive and then locked you out of it with a ransom note.

Anyhow, unfortunately if you don't know the password, don't have a Recovery Key, and don't have an auto-unlock file anymore elsewhere, then the data is lost.  If there was some way to access the data without any of those things, then unfortunately the encryption would be effectively useless.

In addition, I cannot get the system to reset...it just flashes and goes back to the request screen. 

I have a question someone here might answer:  If I disable the PTT in the bios, will it kill the encryption.  I know it will get rid of any passkeys (like I have any!). I just don't want to lose ALL my data on that drive!

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@camntx wrote:

In addition, I cannot get the system to reset...it just flashes and goes back to the request screen. 

I have a question someone here might answer:  If I disable the PTT in the bios, will it kill the encryption.  I know it will get rid of any passkeys (like I have any!). I just don't want to lose ALL my data on that drive!

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@camntxI'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "PTT".  But if BitLocker is using software encryption, then no BIOS changes will "kill" the encryption.  The way to kill it would be to wipe the disk.  If BitLocker was enabled in a way that causes it to leverage hardware encryption support built into the drive (this is rather unlikely because the steps to achieve this are pretty involved), then you'd have to perform a secure erase of the drive, typically using a utility provided by the drive manufacturer.  But either way, any data that's encrypted in a way that you don't have the necessary knowledge or materials (e.g. auto-unlock files) to decrypt should be considered lost.  If you suspect that there might be other partitions on the drive that are unencrypted, you can try following the instructions I recently wrote in this post to help someone whose system had become unbootable and who wanted to try to recover some files.  That same Rescue environment would allow you to freely browse the contents of any partitions that aren't encrypted.

Could you confirm your model number?  I am familiar with an Inspiron 17 7779 but I do not see any 1779s

I really appreciate your in-depth response. I contacted Dell and was told that because my computer is out of warranty (my warranty expired 3-28-2019, and the problem started 4-4-2019 after a Dell "critical" update) I was told to use this forum.  I searched the internet for software that might recover the password, and the only thing available is a software that would cost +$800.00, way out of my budget!!! I was able to recover the recovery key and the file name where the password is stored using the cmd prompt, unfortunately, the file does not exist on my computer! go figure.  I contact the software company who writes BitLocker, and was basically told, too bad cannot be recovered without the password and their software doesn't make mistakes. In response, I removed the hard drive, connected it to my pc with a usb connection and deleted the partition.  It now shows as a "Raw" drive.  Using recovery software, I have been able to recover some of my files, I am hoping for more success.  I will then format the drive and reinstall it in my computer.

In the meantime, I have been trying to reinstall the OS. I have downloaded the SupportAssist and have reset software on one usb thumb drive, and the windows OS on a 2nd one, downloaded through the Dell OS Recovery site. The problem I am having now is that when I boot to either one, I get to the Troubleshoot screen, it runs the diagnostic, and then tells me that there is no boot record, however, it is there when I explore the drives.  I just cannot get my computer to reset or reinstall, and the OS that is on it now is not preforming very well.  I don't want to reinstall my second drive or any of my programs until I have Windows running right, so this machine is pretty much an expensive email reader!

ARGH!!!! Very frustrated!