How to get around bitlocker recovery key

Dcrean · 10 Jul 2016

When I boot up my laptop I am asked to enter the bitlocker recovery key. I do not have this, I don't even recall setting it up. How do I solve this issue. I am willing to completely reinstall windows. I can't get in any further than this screen. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Slartybart · 10 Jul 2016

Did you visit http://windows.microsoft.com/recoverykeyfaq as it suggests on the screen?

Dcrean · 10 Jul 2016

Slartybart said:

Did you visit http://windows.microsoft.com/recoverykeyfaq as it suggests on the screen?

I did of course. The recovery key is only at that link if you put it there yourself windows does not automatically save the key there

Slartybart · 10 Jul 2016

I though you might have, but I had to ask

Macrium Rescue disk might help, but I don't know enough about Macrium to advise you, I only started playing with the utility a few days ago, but I saw a reference to Bitlocker - that's all I can tell you about that.
Macrium Reflect Free

Macrium Reflect KnowledgeBase - KnowledgeBase - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

A Clean install would be my suggestion, since you're willing to do that.
Windows 10 - Clean Install - Windows 10 Forums

Don't rush into the Clean install - another member might offer you a way to turn off a feature you don't recall turning on.
That would sort of defeat the purpose of Bitlocker though, in my opinion

altae · 10 Jul 2016

Of course you cannot get around it, wouldn't be much of an encryption if you could

Your only options are to restore a backup (image) of that drive (if you got one that contains the data before it was encrypted) or to wipe everything and start from scratch.