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726386
BitLocker: need a key but I never installed it
Hi all, I have an unusual problem. 3 days ago my hard drive got blocker by BitLocker. It asks for a key in order to unlock my hard drive.
The problem is that I have never installed or set up BitLocker. This is a new laptop and no one had access to it except me. So I am 100% sure that BitLocker was never set up. I bought it via Amazon in Boston 4 months ago.
I checked my Microsoft account but didn't find BitLocker key there (again, because I didn't set it up). I called Dell and they told me I should call Microsoft. I called Microsoft and they told me I should call Dell. It's a closed circle and no one seems to be responsible.
My solution is to re-install Windows but in this case, I will lose all my data (which I don't want to do).
Does Dell community has any recommendations? Did this issue happen in the past? Who could have set up BitLocker encryption on my laptop without providing me with a password?
If I don't recover my data, I consider suing Dell here in Boston.
Hball15
6 Posts
0
October 29th, 2019 11:00
Can you explain what you did? I don't understand viciousdude's post
Hball15
6 Posts
0
October 29th, 2019 12:00
Found the device, but no reference to a bitlocker key
Hball15
6 Posts
0
October 29th, 2019 12:00
Turns out, I have an Azure account I didn't know about. Not able to find the recover key in the Azure portal. Can't find any Devices tab.
Please help. I feel like I am on the cusp of ending this nightmare.
sasan-ndia.org
1 Message
0
November 21st, 2019 10:00
Had this on a Latitude 7480. Dell updates through SupportAssist ran and then got BL screen. Tried several solutions here, someone suggested reverting the firmware back to previous version. That worked! (Downnload prev version from Dell Support site, put on a FAT32 formatted USB drive. Put USB drive in locked PC. Reboot PC, hit F12 on startup. Choose the option to Flash the BIOS. It brings up a screen to browse to the file on USB, and applies the old firmware.)
I applied other Dell updates (unchecked the recent BIOS update) and some Windows updates. On reboot,it was locked again. I looked as BIOS and it got updated again. Called Dell as it was under support, asked how to stop BIOS from updating. The tech Alonzo said he's seen this a lot. Had me check the BitLocker settings (type Bitlocker in Cortana, open the Manager). It showed that BL was ON. He said this can happen when BL is on and firmware applied as the system sees this as a HW change. So you can just suspend BL, update the firmware, and restart it.
NOTE: This happened because BL was ON, and I didn't know it. How it got turned on, I don't know. I manage about 50 Dell laptops, and we are moving to encrypting them, but using our Sophos Firewall to manage it so it will have all the recovery keys. I turned off BL to unencrypt the disk, and will let Sophos (which uses BL as the encryption engine) redo the encryption.
So this solution may not work for you, if BL is not on and the firmware update not the problem. But going back a version of firmware is a good option to try, then see if BL is on, and if you don't know the key, turn it off.
gust4vsson
1 Message
0
December 11th, 2019 04:00
THANK YOU SO MUCH
This worked and helped me.
user_385890
1 Message
0
December 23rd, 2019 03:00
Hi All, I had exactly the same issue and I was able to resolve it and recover all the data. Log in to your Microsoft account and click on settings and then you would need to select your laptop and this is the trickery part. At first it was showing bit locker off but that was because I had another laptop on the account and then when I clicked on my laptop it showed bit locker is on and I clicked to find recovery key! Hope this is your case as well!
Babus32
1 Message
0
December 24th, 2019 05:00
I had the same problem with my Dell vostro, that I bought online on Amazon india. I was also very disturbed because I had my 1year old daughters precious photos stored on it.i.went through all the options listed on this forum and found no solution. Finally I found another solution online at https://one drive.live.com/recoverykey.
Dell_Guest
1 Message
0
December 26th, 2019 22:00
Hi
The same thing happened to me. But a little different. I have no idea why it happened and I never did it. Just I removed my HDD and replaced SSD and kept HDD in the caddy. I installed a new OS in SSD and logged in all fine with SSD but surprisingly my HDD both drives got locked with BitLocker. No idea why it happened.
All my data is in HDD but my SSD is new and fresh. It happened in Dell Inspiron 3000 model. I'm unable to access HDD because both drives or locked. The same story like others said Dell and Microsoft blaming each other for the issue when I contacted them for some support. That did not help.
In my SSD for the first time, I created MS Account for login like others said I went there to check my recovery keys. I found two keys. There are KEY ID and recovery key. I entered both and it did not accept and throwing some mismatch error. Because Key ID is different from what drive is asking and with ID what it is generated. But I have only one MS Account and that I have created for the first time in SSD. I did not understand why it is not matching and Key ID is different.
Now I removed my HDD and kept in an external case to try various options to get my Data which is important for me. Reset and other options did not work for me. If I resolve this issue will post it here. It may help others.
Yelsel2
1 Message
0
January 3rd, 2020 04:00
Wow! Thanks for this, I've been trying to get into my old Surface forever!! This has done it, I'm a small business with a 365BP licence and never thought of going into Azure. Awesome!!
Ri3m4nn
1 Message
0
January 5th, 2020 20:00
Enabling PTT worked for me!
goober5595
33 Posts
0
January 5th, 2020 21:00
The biggest problem i had initially was the fact that i had never heard of bitlocker in first place, a year after i bought my laptop and began using it, it went through a bios update and locked down, most likely it had asked for a bitlocker key, i honestly don't remember now, but again, I had no idea what a bitlocker key was to begin with so I went another route, by downloading boot software from dell, which its only goal was to reinstall windows. None the less it has been another year since that moment, I still don't have my valuable files, but I know enough about bitlocker to know that in the wrong hands, or in the hands of someone that does not even know it exists, can be deadly. My pc had a home version of windows 10 and did not even meet minimum specs for bitlocker, according to microsoft windows 10 home does not support bitlocker. could be why i never knew my drive was bitlockered. My question at this point is why is a harddrive able to simply reinstall windows over a bitlockered drive, if the goal is to protect ones data? Why does a computer that does not support bitlocker become bitlockered 3 days after i purchased it and never let me know about it so i could save the 48 digit key that is so valuable, why does dell have information on its site bragging about how well and seamless a computer that at some point meets specs for bitlocker will seamlessly and automatically load and enable bitlocker without any warning to its user, on a pc that does not support it. those are frustrating details that i have went through over the past year and have had nothing but told to me as to why or how this happens, i know if i had created a problem like that in my business I would have to have been financially responsible for all the damage it created, but instead you get run around and nothing to fix the problem, since it is not fixable, sure the tpp or whatever changes that can be made in the bios would have been great if i had known about it in first place, but that were not the case. simply entering the 48 digit key that was hidden away in an account that i had no knowledge about would have been viable option had i been privy to it, the fact is I never should have had to deal with that anyway, hate to say that most of us users have no use or need for that garbage and if we did we would buy it and put it on their ourselves, then the problem would be on me not you, atleast i could have done some thing about it. Yes i am only doing my 1 year venting anniversary thing. there is no way to express my real feelings but so long as someone somewhere is gaining something by using bitlocker then more power to you, my guess is you would have been fine without it, but the catch word encryption sounds real cool. someone tell me why this is being pushed onto these computers in first place. Is it like some of the phone apps that simply allows the government another line of untethered access to a computer that they have no business in. whatever the reason i am certain that if the person does not know it is on there you will be hearing from them soon enough with lost data.
(edited)
Zizoo24
1 Message
0
January 6th, 2020 22:00
This worked for my latitude 7480. Thank YOU SO MUCH!!
I had the exact same issue. After working on the PC and reading threads on the internet for 6 hours, I got pass the Bitlocker screen!!!
And this is what I did in this order. You must do ALL the steps. Doing each one only did not fix it for me.
- I reset the BIOS (not the PC) back to factory settings. Restarted
- Go back into BIOS (F2) and enable secure boot. Click on exit and the PC should re-boot.
- At this point Windows booted up, I logged in, and I immediately disabled the F*!*&% Bitlocker encryption!!!
I hope this helps somebody. I know I tried a lot of different things I found online and that didn't work. I know I was ready to format and re-load Windows until Dell said I had to pay full price for a copy of Windows 10 that I already owned. I already cursed on here once so I will leave it at that.
Charango
1 Message
1
January 7th, 2020 08:00
I'm having the same issue, never installed bitlocker... Tried the BIOS fix and didn't work. This is great . Will never buy DELL again in my life!
sveldstra
1 Message
0
January 13th, 2020 12:00
Attention Office 365 users:
This worked great! I was sweating over losing Quickbooks data. I am a small business user with Dell laptops. I had a 7285 that Dell damaged repairing. I kept the SSD and slid it into a USB sled and was not able to access the drive due to Bitlocker. I too never set it up when I began using the laptop in early 2019. However, by going to the office 365 admin center I was able to find the Bit Locker key registered in Azure Active Directory under the device manager and user profile. I had used multiple drives so the Key ID is important for identifying the correct key.
martinb0820
17 Posts
0
January 14th, 2020 01:00
It isn't always clear in this thread whether Windows 10 Pro or Home is the subject of a particular post; I'm not sure which suggestions apply in my case.
I have a one month old XPS 15 with Windows Home.
I didn't realize that Bitlocker was enabled (I never turned it on) until I installed backup software. The software was unable to create a backup, and reported a Bitlocker related error.
There is no padlock icon visible for the C drive (Why is this?) but Settings --> Computer Management --> Storage --> Disk Management indicates that C: is Bitlocker encrypted.
My question is - given that this is Windows 10 Home, can I just do Settings --> Device Encryption --> Turn Off without risking losing data?
Also, should I make any BIOS setting updates (or anything else) to keep it turned off? (I realize this may have been covered in this thread, but it is 16 pages at this point...)