BITLOCKER

Question

Hi guys, Just in case, I have also a DELL laptop but what happened to me with my LENOVO could have happened with my DELL as it did happen to a lot of Windows users in any PC manufacturer. After I've changed my LENOVO X270 laptop faulty RAM and internal keyboard, now at boot there is a Bitlocker screen it is asking me for a BitLocker key*! I don't have it in my Microsoft/OneDrive account, on a printout I saved, on a USB flash drive, in an Azure Active Directory, held by a system administrator or whatsoever! This is logical: despite BitLocker comes preinstalled in Windows but I never ran and less configured it! Please trust me, I am in IT for +30 years and even if I had Alzheimer's disease I will remember it! So, after googling and searching on Microsoft KB, I've found out that there are thousands (if not millions) of Windows users to whom it happened too. I believe it was triggered by a Windows system update and security measures which I never ever set! I've obviously contacted Microsoft Support, checked since the past sleepless 3 weeks a lot of KBs, forums tried many prompt commands, BIOS settings, watched hours of videos, contacted recovery software companies (like Elcomsoft, Passware, TheGrideon...) all of them said their product cannot help in my case because my drive was encrypted with a numeric password which is a recovery key. I didn't want to reinstall Windows or bring my laptop to a hardware recovery store as I don't want to take the risk to make my data unrecoverable and also if I cannot find a solution, This is unacceptable and Microsoft is fully responsible/liable for their updates and products. Thanks a lot guys for reading. * for illustration purpose

DELL-Cares · Answer

We tried reaching you on a private message asking for the Service Tag number to ascertain the warranty but did not receive a response. Please feel free to reply to the private message whenever you are available.

XPS_Man · Answer

@alyo

Sys admin, have both Domain and non Domain machines. Started noticing this issue a couple of years ago, it kinda of Surprised me at first as Bit Locker was an unknown feature to windows home version. Microsoft should put a warning message during initial setup about Bit Locker, their approach is good, but implementation is poor.

@ARSuman

Open disk management and you can see which partitions are Bit Locker Encrypted, The Drive will appear with Lock symbol in File explorer.

Once confirmed your Drives are Encrypted, you can find your keys

1. From your Microsoft account : www.onedrive.com/recoverykey

2. If you are not using a Microsoft account you can backup your key from Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\BitLocker Drive Encryption

ARSuman · Answer

Hi Guys, How can i backup Bitlocker Recovery key if its turned off for any drive partition.Is it required to Turned On to take backup of Bitlocker Recovery key?

Windows General

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