BitLocker: need a key but I never installed it

I am having similar issue. How did you solve this?

All,

I too have the same problem.  First of all let me say I have been a tech for over 25 years and have Cisco, Microsoft, SAP, etc, etc, etc certificates coming out of my ears.  I'm not saying that because I'm bragging because they don't mean squat to me.  I say that because I want you to know my life is computers.  So this isn't coming from some "newbie."  (Sorry newbies no offense, you'll get old & crusty too just give it time)  Someone mentioned the possibility that the reason some of these computers are having this problem is because they are not "genuine" Dell or they are returns or refurbs.  That is not true.  I am a Dell reseller and sell quite a few Latitudes to a local compact equipment dealer.  They have 6 locations in 4 states and use a lot of laptops.  I order ALL of my laptops through my Premier account.  Brand new Latitudes between $1200-$1800.  Over the past 6-8 months I have had 4 laptops do this exact thing.  I was lucky with 2 of them and just kept rebooting and/or doing a "hard" reset, and they eventually booted.  They have been fine since.  The other 2 however did not boot again.  I had to wipe them clean and start over.  I had backups but that's not the point.  Do you know how long it takes to reload Windows 10 and all the updates (can you say creators edition?).  I called Dell support not to see if they could do anything, because once a drive is encrypted you are NEVER going to access it without the key.  (And of course I didn't have a key BECAUSE I DIDN'T ENCRYPT IT).  The reason I called tech support was to see if they knew why it decided to encrypt itself?  They had no idea and pretty much said it was done by the user.  Like EVERYONE on here has said, it was NOT done by choice.  I can promise you my end users have absolutely no idea what BitLocker is, much less how to use it.  Besides you have to access it through Control Panel and that's not an easy task in Windows 10.  And even if you did somehow manage to access the program, it still requires a lot of input from the user to actually perform the process.  It warns you multiple times so it's not likely that anyone "accidentally" encrypted their drive.  The point I'm trying to make (for those of you who keep hinting that the end user is somehow to blame) is that there's a definite problem, and it's NOT the user.  And it's NOT questionable equipment purchases.  Dell Latitudes are encrypting themselves and someone at Dell needs to acknowledge it and fix it.

Hey guys I just ran into this problem last night and solved it.  On another device enter the website that comes up in the bitlocker screen.  Your outlook email will come up, enter your email you use for windows and than password, it will than ask for you to choose one of your recovery emails, choose one and than confirm it by typing it in also, it will send you a code to that email, go to that email and than you have the code to enter. go back to the regular email and press you have code and than enter it.  Than you will have 1 to 3 different bitlocker codes to unlock your hard drive and get back to windows.  Try all 3 until one of them works on the bitlocker screen.

I have bitlocker on my computer that showed up one day as well.  I did not know bitlocker existed. I am very upset and plan to fight this . I have called Microsoft multiple times and gone to the store in person to be told the same thing . That I must have enabled bitlocker and there is no way they can help me except to just  erase the data . Microsoft has poor customer service and I am extremely dissatisfied with the answers I am being given . I have been told it is Asus fault , my laptop manufacturer , and then Best Buy's fault , my supplier, but the truth is , it's Microsofts fault, they created the program and should have thought of all possible situations that could arise where a consumer may nend to  decrypt their data and lost their key.  How do the developers of bitlocker not have a backup plan to help customers recover keys when they did not set it up? Why did they not think that a situation like this would arise where bitlocker may have even been turned on by someone else and the owner of the laptop wants it removed ? I feel like the people who are on the phones for Microsoft for tech support are a joke who just read you the same scripts over and over until you give up and erase your data. How can I trust them when they give me mixed answers ? And I had to assert my issue with a guy for half an hour before he finally said something different than , I can't help you. And I asked to speak to his supervisor/boss and he said he is busy and that he basically would be busy for eternity. I asked who made Bitlocker and he said a team of developing engineers . I asked why I can't speak with them since they made it . He said they don't deal with customer service . So why can't I speak with someone who actually knows the program inside and out ? That's the person I want to talk to not some tech support guy.  So if this happens to you , and not by choice then fight it and fight it with all you got because it isn't right and it doesn't matter if the difference is big or small your still making a difference and should stand up for what's right . I really hope we can get enough people to make noise about this and be heard because it's very unfair and dissapointing . 

Has anyone actually resolved this issue?

my laptop which I bought 7 months ago and run my business on has said the hard drive is missing then it won’t do any more than keep asking for a bitlocker key. I have been on the phone the dell Microsoft and pc world where I bought it from and they all keep blooming each other.

this is totally unacceptable someone needs to take responsibility!

dell why is this encryption on

@viciousdude Thanks a million this worked for me!!!

You can obtain your bitlocker key code by doing this.  https://hardsoft-support.kayako.com/article/54-how-to-backup-bitlocker-drive-encryption-recovery-key-in-windows-10

I have lost millions of dollars of client files because of this issue. I have never sued anyone but based on all the comments on this thread, it appears I am not alone. This is ripe for a class action. 

This has to be done before having the problem happening, it will not solve the issue !

But thanks for sharing, people should clearly do this manipulation to recover the issue when it happens

Hi all,

I got the same problem as described by K_User, I had the same ping pong discussion between Windows and Dell, who each other rejects the responsability on the other one... 
So, there are actually no other solution than re-installing an image of Windows 10 and re-installing all the programs I had! 
I can only recommand to push and call the services of Dell and Windows to fix this bug.

My opinion is that this issue is related to Windows 10. The reason is that after an update during the night of WIndows 10, BitLocker was activated (bug). Of course Windows will never say that this issue is related to them. 

Feel free to spread this issue on every forum, so we can hope that this bug will be fixed. !

I tried this but pressing the windows key and Q had no effect, didn't provide any option to type anything. Any ideas?

Problem solved....

I had the exact same problem on my Surface Book 2 (Microsoft) machine, after routine installation of windows updates. Never heard of bitlocker before, so I didn't save the key. I've never linked the computer to a Microsoft account. I was (and still am) logging-into the computer as a local user.

After several ping-pong rounds with Microsoft support I understood that I am going to lose all data on my hard drive, and the only assistance I would get from them are the steps to re-image the machine.

The bottom line - I eventually, with a lot of luck, found the 48-digits key in an Azure account, and solved the problem. My message to you is that there is a good chance that your key is saved in (one of) your Microsoft accounts (which you may not even be aware of its existance). I was very surprised to find that I had several MS accounts, even though I did not set them up. I have no idea how it happened, but I was able to access, in addition to my "standard" MS account two additional accounts: one of them was an old email address I haven't used for several years (I don't know how and why it was linked to a Microsoft account), and also a gmail address (xxxx@gmail.com as the user name for the MS account). I didn't have the password for those, but could reset it. Unfortunately the bitlocker key was not there. I accidentally saw a post saying that corporate users also have something called Azure account. I am working in an academic institute supported by Microsoft cloud etc. I never heard or used (so do my colleagues) this Microsoft Azure, but thought it worth giving a try and check if I have an Azure account. Surprisingly I found that I have an Azure account and was able to login with the same credentials of my standard MS account. I cannot describe how happy I felt I when I saw my computer name (the Surface book 2) appearing there. However, I was not able to see the properties of the computer due to security reasons. I then called our IT support who referred me to the person in our institute in charge of Azure, and with his security credentials he was able to see the details/properties of my computer in Azure. There, my bitlocker key was waiting....

In case this is helpful to anyone I was able to solve a similar problem. My Dell laptop was trapped in airplane mode and I got the advice, on this forum, to reset bios to default. The result was being locked out with the demand for the recovery key which, like all of you, I never set up and did not appear in my Microsoft account. I was able to bypass this by restarting, hitting F2, and instead of resetting bios to default this time chose the option to “restore to factory settings.” This enabled me to bypass the prompt for the key and my computer now loads as normal with all of my files intact. (Once I got in I searched the computer for bitlocker and navigated to the option to print the recovery key, which I did so I have for future reference.) I hope this helps at least some people. Not sure if it will always work but it’s hilarious that the Dell website doesn’t even suggest this option.

Same problem on my XPS13. Carefully re-read message and it said provide key  ---- OR ENABLE SECURE BOOT. 

F2 into Bios enabled SECURE BOOT and Voila ---- windows loaded

Almost **bleep** up by not reading carefully and panicking