1

Helo team
Please note that my uncle forgets his password so he keeps trying untill it triggered the bitlocker . Its now saying bitlocker recovery key . He does not know the key .

Please assist me with more solutions . I tried some but no luck of which the drive has important info
Thank you

10 Spice ups
2

Sadly, the data is likely lost if he does not know the key. It would defeat the purpose of encryption if you could bypass it. Reinstalling Windows may be your only option.

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Unfortunately if there is not a copy of the key in the places mentioned in this MS article then you are stuck Finding your BitLocker recovery key in Windows - Microsoft Support If you set up his computer then the key may be in your account. There is no way of cracking a bitlocker password and if there was then it would be a useless security measure.

With any PC you have to keep separate backup of any valuable data.

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Oh tight

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@ SLRAGE
ok what if I slave the drive to my laptop and try to take his info and reinstall is it possible

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Wherever you put the drive you will need the bitlocker password. So using the drive as a slave in yours is not going to give you access. Of course you can wipe the hard drive and install Windows on it as a fresh install but you will have lost the data on it.

Unless the data on the PC is sensitive then don’t use bitlocker on the reinstallation and if you do make sure you know the key and where it is kept.

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Ok and there is no way to recover the data after the reinstall of os?

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If it needs the bitlocker key and you have not got it then there is no way to get the data back. If you ever use or inadvertently use bitlocker then you have to make sure you know where the key is kept. It maybe on the TPM or it may be with the person who installed Windows on the PC. What is the PC hardware and it’s history?

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Its a thinkpad L490 and I already asked the one installed the windows. Thank you Peter for feeding me with infomation

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There is a blog about the bitlocker process of unlocking the hard drive here: Understanding BitLocker TPM Protection | ElcomSoft blog . It claims that it may be possible to get the TPM to give you the key but I suspect that is not going to happen but you could give it a go. It might also, be that there has been file corruption which might have upset bitlocker. I did wonder about the hardware spec because it might not have had a TPM chip but since it does and you have Windows Pro then as I understand it you automatically enable bitlocker when installing Windows. The moral of the story is only use bitlocker if it is necessary, make sure you have an independent backup of data and a recovery key.

1 Spice up
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Thank you so much Peter and the article gives me a big picture and help me in the near future. Will aslo share this with my uncle to understand

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With relations such as your Uncle and others that might have difficulty working with IT then I recommend that they get them a Chromebook as the data on that is automatically backed up to Google servers so that it is not so easy to lose it. Chromebooks can often do all that most people want their Windows PC for. Might be worth looking at that option in the future.

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Thank you so much Peter for the enlightenment .

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If your really lucky, you might be able to view your BitLocker key at this site ( My Account ) but if your unable to get into your MS related account for the laptop then that could hold you back from using this method.

Relevant information can also be found at this link. → Finding your BitLocker recovery key in Windows - Microsoft Support