BitLocker: need a key but I never installed it

Hi All,

Just had this happen to me when I had a motherboard replaced on a Sales 7285 laptop.

The tech that came to replace the board was definitely not interested in helping and just wanted to get out of the job (pretty poor if you ask me), but I knew I did not activate BitLocker encryption.

I have to say that you need to look for your Microsoft Azure account (use your Microsoft account if you are your company's admin), EVEN if you don't use Azure. I logged in to MS Azure using my company admin MS account. From there I start clicking on links until I had the window that showed company devices (all of which I did not add). From there I found the laptop that was BitLocker locked and found the key I needed to enter (it's like 42 digits long so make sure to type it in correctly).

At a guess Microsoft enabled encryption with either a Windows update or because we were using Office365 (either for Office itself or for Email "Office 365 Essentials license") and perhaps that is were it enables the encryption as part of some security requirement.

Part of the reason why I think it has something to do with Office 365 is because I saw one of our manager's home PCs in the list - he had installed Office onto and hence there was a listing.

Hoping that this will help someone.

Regards,

Troy

An adaptation of this solution worked for me on an Inspiron 13 2-in-1 with the same BitLocker issue following a Windows update. Bitlocker had not been set up/enabled at initial Windows setup. On the Inspiron 13 2-in-1, look for PTT in the BIOS rather than TPM. 

- Enable PTT

- Boot sequence: UEFI

- Enable Secure boot

- Disable Legacy boot

THIS WORKED FOR ME!  Thank you so much!  The only option before was to format the "server" at the office.

It is INSANE that this was the case!  Of course, after we got the recovery key, we had to repair issues with Windows 10 too!  Ugh!

If it helps anyone else--I had to be logged in as the Office 365 ADMIN to see the BitLocker recovery keys.

Thank you again, @Matt Anderson Law !!!!

This do not work anymore, I had to fully reset my notebook. 

I do have proper backups, but this experience let me truly disappointed of Dell. 

i can recovery my file with ontrack easy recovery i hope you all help sorry my bad english if you need help you can contact my facebook arlha nugroho putro

I had similar problem with a Dell Insperion 13 Model 7373 2-in-1 notebook. Solution was to update BIOS firmware but problem with update was I couldn't boot to BIOS due to Bitlocker screen. Work around was to remove the M.4 SSD from the system. It then booted to BIOS and the update could occur. Previous Dell BIOS was 1.1.0 and update was 1.14.0. dated 20-May-2019. You will need to disable Secure Boot in UEFI, then enter Bitlocker key and this turns Bitlocker off. We never created a Bitlocker Key but you can obtain one. There are many references but here's one to Microsoft: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026181/windows-10-find-my-bitlocker-recovery-key 

Thank you Dell Support Teams,

Yesterday I had got an issue the same as the situation above. I had tried many ways to overcome the problem, nothing worked. Today, I have tried to access BIOS option by pressing F2, luckily, the still problem has totally gone. 

For my case, it might be different from anyone of you. I did disable Secure Boot before the Bitlocker screen prompt as you all said previously. 

Now, my laptop has been back. I immediately register this laptop with my MS account.

I recommend one of you trying this solution, BIOS option. It is worked with my case.

Dell only sells used and previously owned computers in the Dell Outlet store and they are labeled accordingly; If you buy Dell from big box stores you are not going to get good support but if you buy online from the business section and pay for support you will get good support.  You get what you pay for.

Sorry this happened to you.  This is a good reason to start backing up your data.

None of the above solutions worked for me because I do not even have TPM on my bios set up. In a moment of epiphany, I unplug the power cable, waited for 5 min & then start the laptop. It booted into windows!! 

I first heard of BitLocker in May 2018 when one morning it suddenly locked me out, asking for some recovery key I knew nothing about. After a day of going through what most here are familiar with, the next morning it magically unlocked itself. Tragedy averted! For a short time, I tried to find that key but no one could help and I forgot about it.

Then, on Sept 29, 2019, I got locked out again. Even though this time I had disabled BitLocker, somehow it enabled itself again (maybe through an update?). Again I tried everything, contacted everyone, etc. My last hope was that after 24 hours my laptop would magically unlock itself again. And, thankfully, it did. This obviously is not the way BitLocker is intended to work...steal a computer, wait 24 hours and have access to all the files. I suspect there is a bug someplace.

This second time around I found the Recovery Key and saved it.

To find and backup my recovery key, I searched on my computer for BitLocker. I was taken to "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\BitLocker Drive Encryption" and chose the "Backup recovery key" option. You can save it to the cloud, to file or print it out.

Apparently, BitLocker comes with Windows 10 (except Home editions) so none of us install it or set it up because it is already there. We are supposed to just know this and back up the recovery key.

I've had the same problem discussed within this thread - I never set up Bitlocker, but am getting a prompt for a recovery key when trying to reboot following system problem.

Has there been any progress on this in the last year?

Need more detail on this. Not sure how to get the choice of recovery emails