BitLocker Drive Encryption Recovery Error: Error Recovering Disk...

rajb · 13 Sep 2020

Hello E

BitLocker Drive Encryption Recovery Error: Error Recovering Disk...-partitions.png

veryone,

I have this external HD which holds Photos of my whole life, Video Tutorials and Ebooks. It has two partitions (H: and I:) and both partitions were Bit Locker Encrypted. I have recently moved to Mac (with Bootcamp) and I decided to Decrypt / Remove the Bit Locker as otherwise the HD wasn't accessible on Mac Side. So I started with decryption (on Windows 10) of 1st. partition (H:) and it was just a few percent done when my little daughter disturbed the USB Data Trasnsfer wire which caused decryption to stop and not complete. When I re-plug the USB wire the BitLocker interface was gone and the error started appearing. The HD is powered by USB and there is no extra Power Supply attached to it.

Now, I am unable to access the drive by any mean. It doesn't ask for the Password and it just shows one drive (I think the one which I was decrypting). To make it worse, the recovery key backup was in the drive itself and I don’t have any other backup. However, I remember the password which I was using to unlock the Drive.

Also, there is an anomaly to this behavior too. On Windows 10 which is having updates on, I can only see one drive/partition (no Lock pad) and it's always busy. The system stops responding if I double click the drive. However, on Windows 7 which is actually an old OS to Windows 10 surprisingly, I can see both Drives/Partitions with a Lock pad.

And the one which I started decrypting is not accessible and throws an error: Error recovering disk: "A recovery key was not found on this drive. the drive can not be unlocked" while the one which was yet to be decrypted is accessible. Please help me gain access to the partition which is not accessible. I have read about this Windows BitLocker Repair Tool but since I don’t have a Recovery Key or Recovery Password I can’t use it.

I just have the normal password which I was using to Open the Drive. Another utility that I tried is from m3datarecovery.com and that is accepting the password but not able to recover the data. Any solution to fix the drive and get the data back. Can we make the Drive Decryption resume may be through Windows Restore or Any other Utility / Events viewer etc. Or get the Meta Data and find recovery key/password using normal password. May be I am thinking high.

Attaching a screenshot of error from Windows 7. Please let me know if you need any other information from my side.

Thanks in advance!

sygnus21 · 13 Sep 2020

rajb said:

To make it worse, the recovery key backup was in the drive itself and I don’t have any other backup. However, I remember the password which I was using to unlock the Drive.

First, unless you manually stored a copy of the key on the drive, BitLocker won't allow you to put the "recovery key" on the drive being encrypted. This is a built in safety feature to prevent you from installing the key on the encrypted since you can't access said drive without it (at least that's how it works under Windows 10, and I thought Win 7 as well).

Anyway, (and unfortunately I have experience here), if you've lost the BitLocker key or password, the only way to access the drive is wiping it. Many will opine this, that, or the other, and but in the end you'll have to wipe the drive if you don't have the key/password. And Microsoft won't help you here and will simply tell you if you've lost the key, you'll have to wipe the drive.

Anyway, I use BitLocker and have a couple of drives encrypted including my OS drive (BitLocker key), and a backup drive (BitLocker key and password).

Hopefully you can find the key. Good luck.

rajb · 14 Sep 2020

@ sygnus21 Thanks for your answer... You are actully right and the key was saved on a different drive and later moved on to protected drive. However, one thing worth considering is I remeber the password (normal password) but the interface is no more asking for it. Can't be make system to ask for password again or resume the decryption process.

sygnus21 · 14 Sep 2020

rajb said:

@ sygnus21 Thanks for your answer... You are actully right and the key was saved on a different drive and later moved on to protected drive. However, one thing worth considering is I remeber the password (normal password) but the interface is no more asking for it. Can't be make system to ask for password again or resume the decryption process.

I'm a little confused about your "resume the decryption process" statement.

If the drive was never moved from the machine in which the encryption took place, and you are the owner, it shouldn't require a password/key to decrypt. If the drive was moved, or you don't own the PC, the drive can't be decrypted without password/key. So I'm a bit confused on what you mean by "resume the decryption process"?

Regardless, as I said before, if you do not have a key or password, the only way to access the drive is to wipe it.... thus losing any and all data on the drive. That even moving / slaving the drive to another PC won't allow access to the drive. After all, that is the point of encrypting a drive... to protect the drive's content.

As for why you aren't being offered the "password" option, I don't know. Perhaps BitLocker isn't recognizing you had a password, or there were too many attempts to to access the drive that BitLocker is now requiring the key. Under Windows 10, the "OS" drive isn't given the option of creating a password, non OS drives get the "password creation" option. It's been years since I last used Windows 7 so I don't remember it's BitLocker process.

BTW, If you were running Windows 10 with a Microsoft Account, you would have the option of going to your online account and retrieving the key (also, provided you chose to save your key to your online account). With Windows 7, that option isn't available.

At the end of the day without a key you'll have to wipe the drive. As I said, I lost a BL key and had to wipe the drive. Luckily for me the data was backed up elsewhere.

Sorry for the long winded post but it helps to understand what's happening. Good luck.