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Hello all, first time posting here. Hoping someone can provide some insight.

I have a break/fix user with a Windows 11 laptop who has forgotten her password. Her’s is the only local account so no other users to login with. Normally in these cases I would use HirenBoot and reset from there. Problem is Bitlocker is turned on so the drive is not accessible from HirenBoot. The computer came with BitLocker turned on and the recovery key was never printed out so nobody has it, and since it’s a local account the key cannot be found in the MS account she uses.

Thankfully it’s not stuck where it requires the BitLocker key so there’s still the chance we can guess/crack the password. Would anyone have any suggestions for tools we could use to try to bruteforce the password?

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If you have the password to the administrator account, can you boot into safe mode and log in with that and reset her password? Or did she ever configure her security questions for password recovery?

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If the laptop is one of the new CoPilot PCs, bitlocker is enabled by default, as it is with some OEM Dell, under certain conditions.

W11 24H2 will also enable Bitlocker by default.

Generally though these use MS accounts, so the recovery key should be in their MS account.

Apart from the login prompt, where else can you get to?

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Any management \ AV tools installed on the laptop that would give you access to a command prompt?

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Are there other accounts on the computer? With Admin privileges?

Pretty sure Win 11 has lockout policies enabled by default - 10 wrong guesses within 10 minutes, lock for 10 minutes. Brute force may not be possible/practical.

Also pretty sure that user is going to have to remember their password, if there’s no other admin account to do a password reset - you’re not going to defeat BitLocker easily, if at all.

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Unfortunately the local admin is not enabled and there are no other users other than the customer’s. Looks like no security questions either, when i try the password reset prompt the only option i get is to use a password reset disk, which we also don’t have

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This one was set up back when you still got the option to set up as a local account as opposed to an MS account, so it was never added to her MS account

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No other accounts unfortunately.

You’re correct on the lockout policy, and let her know the same that she would have to remember the password somehow. There’s at least that chance

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Can you get to CMD prompt or safe mode?

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If I remember correctly booting up in safe mode automatically re-enables the local administrator account.

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I was just going to suggest this also, It won’t remove any passwords that are set, but it will re-enable the built-in Administrator account

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Yeah and as long as he log in with an admin account, he can reset the users password and or disable bitlocker

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very bad idea. Bitlocker should always be enabled. Disabling security is never the answer. Better management practices in this case are the answer

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My mistake, I don’t mean permanently disable bitlocker. I meant regenerate a new bitlocker key, now I don’t know if you have to disable bitlocker and generate a new encryption key.

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For those asking if you can get a cmd prompt, you can using a win11 image usb or advanced system startup options.

I recently had to do this and was able to use disk part on a permanently locked bitlocker setup.

I have no idea what the OP can do from that CMD prompt though. I just used diskpart and wiped the system to erase the bitlocker key so I could make a new one.

If @OSIHelp isn’t looking to recover data, this is the best option. Win11 installation disk, advanced options, then use diskpart and do a clean command for the disk #. My guess is, she wants her data back.

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I have no idea what the OP can do from that CMD prompt though.

I doubt it will help in this situation, but you can change local passwords using this command:

Net user administrator NewPassword

In this example, you are changing the local administrator account’s password to be “NewPassword”. But it needs to be an elevated command.

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Oh! Thats right! After I made the post, I realized there is a way to create a user using powershell and thought maybe there was a way OP could use cmd to create an admin user and then change the password that way.

Either way, the recovery options of windows has a cmd prompt option when you try to boot to safe mode and you could also use a Win11 drive as mentioned which contains it and can modify and existing installation as long as it can see the partition.

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Disabling bitlocker isn’t an option in this case anyway, since they can’t login to do it.

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Sorry for the late reply!

This sounds promising, I will give this a shot and report back!

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Unfortunately attempting to boot into safe-mode also prompts for the bitlocker recovery key so that’s a no go. That would definitely be helpful in a similar situation without bitlocker in the way though!

I think the only option will be to remember or guess the password looks like

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