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Windows 10 Mobile Bitlocker Recovery Key Blue Screen
A couple of weeks ago I posed a question HERE regarding how to tell whether Windows 10 Mobile device storage was actually encrypted and if so where were the recovery keys stored. The good news, is that the device storage is indeed encrypted when turning 'Device Encryption' on. The bad news is that I still don't know where the recovery keys are stored and it can permanently lock you out of your device.
Earlier I reset a Lumia 630 running Windows 10 Mobile 10586.36 (Settings > System > About > Reset Phone) and when it restarted I was faced with a blue Bitlocker Recovery Key screen. The problem being, that it's a Desktop Bitlocker Recovery screen and as this is a mobile device it's completely useless as you can't do anything with it, it just locks you out of the device. Hard-resetting the phone (Volume Down and Power buttons) doesn't work either, it just reboots the device to the Bitlocker screen again.
All is not lost though, as it's possible to Flash the phone back to the original OS by running the 'Windows Device Recovery Tool'. When connecting the phone to the PC and running the Device Recovery Tool, the tool doesn't recognise the device though with it in it's Bitlocker Recovery state and just shows the Firmware and OS as 'Unknown'. So you then need to click on the 'My Device Was Not Detected' button and follow the on-screen prompts. After a few restarts, it will then flash the phone back to the original Windows 8 OS. Bit of a pain, but at least not totally bricked.
I'm not sure why resetting the phone triggered the Bitlocker Recovery Screen, as I've also reset a Lumia 640 and that didn't trigger the Recovery Mode. The only differences is that I'd unlocked the 630 from it's mobile carrier and also it didn't have a SIM card or internet connection when I reset it. Other that than they were identical, so rather strange.