BitLocker: need a key but I never installed it

I have checked both dell and windows support both say that bitlocker is not supported by win 10 home, my next question is what does not supported mean, because if it is installed on it or for somehow enabled without knowledge, not to mention pc shows no indication of bitlocker, which i would not know anyway since I have never had it.  Yet once it becomes unbootable, then no way to restart after a win update caused crash.  Try bootable media that simply started a reinstall of the os, which I immediately stopped, now harddrive shows no files at all and has been cloned scanned by many professionals that say data is there but not retrievable anymore due to bitlocker metadata corrpution, what now

I was just reading the posts related to this, I myself have experienced near the same thing, with the only exception being that I have Windows 10 home, on a dell inspiron 7573, that is still in warranty.  During a windows update, my system locked up and would not reboot, so I downloaded a boot software from dell as suggested on the website based on my pc info, tried to boot, it did ask me for a key, but not knowing what it was talkiing about I attempted to back out of the recovery process as I too had very important data on the system.  But while backing out, either I misread something, either way it began attempting to reinstall windows, I have no idea why.   so i turned the system off within a couple of seconds of that prompt,   Then callled a local tech to try to atleast back up my files, he then took my system and discovered somehow that bitlocker was enabled.  he asked me about the key, I told him i have never heard of bit locker, he said my drive was encrypted with it, later found the key in my microsoft account which I knew nothing about either.  He attempted to unencrypt the system with the key, but was unsuccessful, then decided to make a sector clone to avoid losing what i had, then tried various ways of recovering data to no good,.  When you connect the drive through an enclosure it shows an empty drive,   nothing there.  As of now i have lost all of my 2018 files over $200,000 worth of work that most of it was ongoing.  

The first noteworthy fact is home version does not support bitlocker, another is i never enabled any encryption on my drive ever, I bought the system new from best buy.  Why was bitlocker on a system that had home version that does not support it in first place.  This has been the worst disaster in my lifetime, one I probably wont financially recover from, simply due to bitlocker being unknowingly installed and enabled on my system.  Obviously I am not the only one this has happened to, I have been tryinig to find facts, hit dead end on every side of the isle, microsoft blames dell and vice versa.  All i know is that microsoft has began force feeding updates onto systems in some cases without any ability to disable or control them from a user standpoint, which iis quite troubling why they feel they should do that.  Dell has been semi helpful, but nobody has offered any solution,  one thing I know is to my knowledge i have tried everything avaiable including sending to Ace recovery who spent 2 weeks analyzing the disc and a clone I made and concluded that the bitlocker metadata is probably corrupted somehow and cannot be fixed thus my data which they know is there cannot be recaptured in a usable format, I praise Ace, they stood behind their claims if they cannot recover exactly what I am lookiing for no charge, they charged me nothing after 2 weeks of deep looking.  I have tried every recovery system that I know of and nothing can produce anything but garbage files, very large garbage files.  

I am not done with this and need to recapture some relief for my loss.  Like I said I will be spending most of my time attempting to redo a years worth of work most of which I have been paid for, thus not able to move forward as the last month has been totally fruitless.  

Had I known anything about bitlocker being on system, I am sure this could have been avoided, maybe, but probably not since there was nothing indicating it was on there in first place.   This is ridiculous and I am beyond angry, At this point i would still be satisfied to get my files back and would not consider further action, but much longer it won't matter.  I need help in some way or another or this could get very bad quickly. I have a family just like most, i aint perfect, but this should not have happened

same problem see my other post, i have home version, which does not support bitlocker

I still have my original harddrive, but it has new windows installed on it, but totally unused after reinstall, also have several sector clones of the drive prior to windows reinstall but after crash, hoping someone can retrieve my data.  What about our US government, NSA or FBI, don't they have everything on their systems also, cant they find stuff that we cannot, maybe since they are supposed to be there for the citizens they won't mind recovering my data, I presume if they cannot do it it cannot be done.  Maybe bitlocker maker can fix it, or is that microsoft to begin with.  There is an underlying reason updates are force fed onto these systems now, without user ability to control what and when.  Either way this user will not just let this go, because 250 k is a lot to lose and totally unnecessary, I have had many pc crashes never have i had the inability to recover the data until now, the drive shows to be 100 percent healthy also

I now have tried everything including total reinstall, which I presumed that if bitlocker was protecting me or my data it would not have let me do anything to the hardrive that was bitlockered, including reinstall over my data.  This seems a bit odd that bitlocker is supposed to somehow prevent a non approved user of a protected pc,  Okay, if my pc has been encrypted automatically by bitlocker or windows, without my knowledge or consent, thus if it crashes and needs to be jump booted or something, but cannot do this because at that time I was unaware of any encryption, or key, after its failed attempt to repair, it only other option was to reinstall os, i stopped the operation, 

My question is simple, if the hardrive is encrypted to protect the data how and why does it allow anyone to simply reinstall over the top of it, or format the drive, without unencrypting it.  I don't about everyone else, but i would much rather have to purchase a new $100 hardrive than overwrite 300k$ worth of work that cannot be recovered, if encryption is there to protect the files rather than self destruct them,  there should be no way to do anything to the drive without the key or some other way of unlocking it, that would ultimately protect the data, for it to be allowed to become corrupt due to a users lack of knowledge of the drive being encrypted, does not seem to me to be protecting anything.  I personally think this encryption stuff is bs and overrated, not to mention that there should be some sort of flag that pops once your drive becomes auto encrypted once you have met the pre requisites that are only known after a months worth of attempting to find a solution, which there is not one, even with the key it is useless if the metadata becomes corrupt due to a user attempting to do what is usually a normal process after a boot failure, by running the boot software downloaded from the dell website based on the specifics determined by the service code of the pc.  For some reason it seems that pc manufacturers presume that everyone knows about bitlocker, I have used pcs for over 20 years never heard of it till recently, and after it made my data unretrieveable, 

This does not appear to be isolated problem, 

IF one buys new pc, with win 10 home, one should not expect it to become bitlockered automatically, without any knowledge consent or anything saying that it happened.   if a key to get in is critical which i guess it is critical primarily for the user itself, since anybody that decides to steal a pc can simply overwrite the drive and pretend it new pc, thus the one suppsesdly protected is the one that loses

I cannot think of one situation where bitlocker being auto installed and enabled on any pc is a good thing, especially unknown to the user.  In my case has never heard of it, even if asked to enter a key, would not know what it is referring to, for the drive to then be corrupted and data to become unusable seems ridicluous and backward from the intended intent of bitlocker

I didn't have access to my hard drive because of bitlocker but that was my fault as I did enable it and couldn't find the recovery keys afterwards. I simply don't remember where I left it at and this was about 5 months ago.

After 3 months of searching and about to give up, my son found out a classmate's father had a similar problem regarding bitlocker and had it fixed. The father gave me the tech guys information and was able to contact him thru his website, his location is in Los Angeles. I'm located in Miami. So I mailed him my hard drive and about 2 days after he received it, he sends me pictures of my data and had access to it as he got the bitlocker recovery keys. I send him his fee and he sends me the hard drive with the key numbers written on a piece of paper. I installed it on my laptop, type in the bitlockers password and then type in the 48 key numbers it asks and viola, I'm using my laptop again.

His website is cybernista.com and charged me $250. I didn't mind paying this fee as I would have lost very valuable data and pictures, lots of pictures. I didn't asked how he did it and to be honest, I don't care. So if you don't mind paying his fee and sending him your hard drive, I for one thinks it worth it if you value your data.

i am not sure what you mean by send photo of problem?? I will take any help i can get, this should not have happened, i have windows 10 home version, if this happened to me, i can only imagine it has happened to other unsuspecting users, they just most likely did not lose 300K worth of job files and data, What do you want a picture of??, I have copies of the harddrive made by sector clone, but they are near 2 tb.  i have tried 2 professional recovery companies and 1 local tech guru, who did find my bitlocker key, which is what clued me in about bitlocker, everyone that has attempted recovery has said that the bitlocker key area of the drive has been corrupted, sounds like a big problem, but what makes it bigger is that it should not have been on there to begin with, everything I have read says that home version of 10 does not support bitlocker, then I read on a support area of dells website that any computer that meets certain criteria regardless of version of windows, it loads and enables seamlessly, similar to that of a cell phone, in other words you never know it happens.  then goes on to say how important it is to keep the 48 digit key in a safe location, because without it if it crashes or needs to be sent for service, all **bleep** can happen, 

guess what that must be exactly what happened to me, because I have no need for it, my pc does not meet min requirements, i had never heard of bitlocker until january of this year, this crash or whatever happened during a windows update the pc would never reboot after it went through its gyrations of updating.  I went on dells website and put in my service code and it gave me software to use to repair it or reload it, which reloading it was not an option as i had files i did not want to lose, so I had only one of the options I was going to try and it did not work, if it had asked for some sort of key or anything to disable bitlocker i never knew it, or how would i have known since it was not supposed to be on there to begin with.  This has near ruined me  

I highly suggest that whoever is loading bitlocker on to systems without knowledge of its owner, may should cease to do that, I already know that I plan to seek some sort of remedy to fix my situation and ease my loss of revenue due to this mishap, i have all i need to prove everything i have said.  when i make mistakes I must make it right with client, i feel the same about anyone else, this was a huge loss and i know i ramble on about it, but i cant let it go

Can you sent photo your problem, yesterday I can copy data that other brand win10 lock by bitlocker, my email thanks

Can you sent video or photo of your problem, yesterday i know the way to copy data that hdd lock by bitlocker win10. My email

Simple answer,yesterday i have customer laptop other brand win 10 bitlocker forgot password, i can copy data using the laptop. Ok. Don't miss understanding

you have my attention, but the big difference here is that a local tech had found the bitlocker key on my unknown to me microsoft account, but they key did not work as the drive had already corrupted the area where they key metadata is, had i known i had bitlocker this would not have happened, had bitlocker not been on there as it should not have been based on everything i read, this would not have happened. i have done a bitlocker recovery software that u apply the key at the beginning, but it will just scan but never find the metadata where the key is stored, when the drive is hooked directly as a external drive there are no files at all, shows to be a blank harddrive, but i have scanned one of the clones myself, and it finds tons of gibrish files mostly very large swf files among other things, there are log files, ironically there are log files that show the exact time where the corruption happened during the windows update, which i presume tried to do bio reflash, i have no idea, it was one of the forced updates that basically brings the computer to a standstill and forces you to do a restart just to function, but then it gyrated with the update process restarted several times, but once 100 percent finish, it never would boot up again, the harddrive is 100% healthy, amazing that the best answer to fix the problem is simply to reload windows, which wipes out the entire drive, the fact it can load automatically is the most troubling, in that how do you know to store the recovery key. you don’t, i never saw anything that resembled any bitlockered drive nor would i have known what to look for, but that iin itself says what good is bitlocker if anyone could have took my pc and done whatever at anytime regardless of bitlocker, just makes not sense to me, it is overrated and problematic. i am bitter about bitlocker, in that if it is created to keep files safe why does it allow things to happen to the drive that can lose the data forever, seems like self destruction software not security software, too easy to mess that system up. i would imagine most of data loss is not due to theft or corruption from bad actors, it is from self destruction people screwing up their own stuff unknowingly, bitlocker only enables that to happen even worse i have every harddrive i have ever owned all with the data that was on there when the pc was laid to rest, i look at a harddrive like i do the engine on a power washer, it will far outlast the rest of the hardware, regardless of what happens to the computer. most recovery companies can recover data from drives that have been emersed in water in a fire or busted in pieces, but one with bitlocker no, even if 100 percent healthy drive, no doubt it keeps anyone from retrieving data, even the user at times. i am still open to anything that can retrieve my files i have all but given up on getting it back, but that is my ultimate desire, rather than going through a costly  , which still don’t get my files back, i would rather have my files than 300k at this point, but that point is not far away that the 300k will be worth a lot more to me than the files

I feel for you, are you sure that bitlocker has been enabled on your drive??  I read your post but did not see that, before you reload your system, it is possible to remove your harddrive and place into an enclosure and hook up via usb cable to another pc to see if your files are there, it could just be the working files on your system, regardless of any of that even if you have already reloaded windows, please stop and put harddrive, if you dont iniitially see your files, you can download several different recovery softwares that are designed to recover lost files or one that have been relocated due to reinstalling windows.  

the most user friendly recovery software in my opinion is Ease US Data recovery, it is free download and use but limited on amount of files you can recover, so if it works the fee is nominal less than 100 to purchase the license to do what you need.  

There is also other ways to recover your 48 digit key, if it was ever created, my problem was that during update pc crashed and me not knowing bitlocker was on there i took normal measures  i have taken many other times and did what you did, apparently that little step possibly blew up bitlocker which should not have been on there anyway

I check this computer again, keep in mind it is home version , it has bitlocker running in the services, I have no idea why, I am somewhat of a consipracy theorist of course and know that things are done for a reason, most likely not for the benefit of the user, ask yourself why would bitlocker be pushed. enabled or loaded onto a pc that does not support it??  Nor does the user know it is on there.  Who benefits from that scenario??  I have yet to see or have seen any benefit to it being on there, in my opinion you just as well have a self destruct remote button that blows it up if someone steals your pc, there were reasons that home version did not have bitlocker or was not supposed to have it.  if someone thinks they are whoopee enough to need it my guess is they are smart enough to buy a computer that supports it in first place, but i suppose either dell or microsoft somehow benefits from it autoloading onto systems, without users knowledge, which creates obvious problems, even for the most experienced it would be problematic.  unless one is just lucky enough to make it through the life of the system without issue, i normally wear out 1 laptop per year, i use these things every day for many hours and not playing games other than game of life, which mine has now been stunted terribly

The only thing you can safe your files, not using recovery software, but using command prompt using original setting