[RESOLVED] Computer unexpextedly locked by Bitlocker

[Bill Heffner]

My wife has a Dell Windows 10 laptop which has suddenly become locked up asking for a Bitlocker encryption key. The instructions for obtaining this inclute flash drives, 20-digit key numbers, something about "F1 through F10 keys" and logging into your Microsoft and getting a printout that was saved when Bitlocker was activated.

Bitlocker was never activated that either one of us knows about (neither of us ever even heard of it), and we have no encryption key. Is there any way to recover from this?

Update: checked both my Microsoft account and hers, and neither one shows any evidence of containing a Bitlocker encryption key.

[fink]

See if this is of any help:

https://boehninglab.wordpress.com/20...-by-bitlocker/

[Bill Heffner]

Nothing there worked. There was one video saying to enable "Secure Boot," which I did. No joy.
There was another, specific to Dell, which said to select "Security" in the BIOS menu and then "PTT Security," but the Security menu did not contain the PTT Security selection.
I also tried "Restore Factory Defaults," which did not clear the problem.

[jdc2000]

Do you have any backups of the data that was on the computer?

[Bill Heffner]

Unfortunately, no. She had been backing up some time ago, but has not backed up in a couple of years. Complacency bites in the butt.

[jdc2000]

Unfortunately, there is probably no way to get your system back. You will likely need to reformat the drive and reinstall Windows. Once you have done that, there are ways to disable BitLocker so you do not get the same problem again. Note that a regular backup program is also a good idea, as the hard drive may die or there may be other issues.

Links:

https://www.minitool.com/news/disable-bitlocker.html

https://www.mvorganizing.org/how-do-...ble-bitlocker/

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/e...tpm-in-windows

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/pow...sserver2019-ps

https://www.isunshare.com/windows-10...indows-10.html

[Bill Heffner]

Thanks. Already restored Win 10 via option offered under "Advanced Options" in the Bitlocker screen asking for encryption key.
No problems doing so. Result is factory clean Win 10 computer setup
I will disable Bitlocker per the links you offered. Thanks for the help.

[fink]

Might be worth doing a deep scan with the free version of Recuva to see if it can find any files.. media, documents, etc that might still be intact and unencrypted if you/she want to try and get anything back from the old install.

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva