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I have a Windows 10 laptop that bitlocker activated on due to a bios change. The PC has been used by multiple people. I do not have the key.

  • Machine is in a workgroup not a domain
  • User’s Microsoft account does not have a key file
  • There is no print out of the key
  • There is no USB back up of the key
  • It will not boot to the OS

@chris-microsoft

3 Spice ups
2

You wont be able to recover data. You need to format and Reinstall OS

There are some Recovery tools claiming they can recover data. But if you want it to unlock and work as usual , it wont work

4 Spice ups
3

Hi Steven,

Unfortunately if the drive is genuinely encrypted with Bitlocker you would need either the general password, or 48 character Recovery Password to access the data. There is no way to bypass Bitlocker encryption without either of these. The only thing that might be worth trying is to remove the drive and attach to another system to confirm whether the bitlocker encryption is “Enabled”, or in a “Suspended” state. If it’s Suspended you may be able to access your data on the secondary system, however if it is Active, then unfortunately the data is not going to be recoverable without one of the passwords.

1 Spice up
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Yup, I have to agree with the previous posters. This is bitlocker working as intended. Absolute encryption that cannot be recovered.

1 Spice up
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Look. There is no way to bypass BitLocker without recovery key. I hope you have backups.

One thing you can try is to revert the bios change. This will allow you to boot again into windows.