[minnie1967]

How to enable BitLocker device encryption on Windows 11 Home
Apparently, you can enable a stripped down version of BItLocker on Win11 Home, it's "Device Encryption".

There was certainly some "active and conscious" effort by someone to make that happen. Bitlocker doesn't show up and encrypt your drive on it's own!

Bahh haa haa! You must not be working on too many newer dells then! HP is pleagued with it too, the bios is faulty and fails. When it fails, bitlocker gets enabled. It's the universal blame game. Bitlocker is a OS/Microsoft component, and NO manufacture will or wants to help you. All you can do is buy a SSD reader, and reformat it and reinstall the operating system. It's not like the standard hard drives, you can't read or open crap after bit locker gets enabled. If she had one drive turned on, there's your back up. If not, you have to start over. Like stated the keys are are I just say embedded on the main. FYI if the computer doesn't NOTHING, most manufactures have come up with a work around, you can load the new bios and TRY and recover the main. I've been pretty successful. When up and going make sure you install driver checker, go to HP, and make sure bios is current. It will also reinstall any other missing or out of date drivers. Last one I did was a dell, 14 months old, manufactures response to a 14 month old BRICKED $1800 laptop, thanks for buying Dell, you should have purchased the extended warranty. I was always a HP guy, switched to Dell, my Inspiron 15 3000 was a POS out of the gate, I refuse to fix my own crap, especially when it has a manufactures warranty on it, they screwed me around until it was out of their warranty while unresolved and Omar said have a nice day.....

 

[minnie1967]

Bahh haa haa! You must not be working on too many newer dells then! HP is pleagued with it too, the bios is faulty and fails. When it fails, bitlocker gets enabled. It's the universal blame game. Bitlocker is a OS/Microsoft component, and NO manufacture will or wants to help you. All you can do is buy a SSD reader, and reformat it and reinstall the operating system. It's not like the standard hard drives, you can't read or open crap after bit locker gets enabled. If she had one drive turned on, there's your back up. If not, you have to start over. Like stated the keys are are I just say embedded on the main. FYI if the computer doesn't NOTHING, most manufactures have come up with a work around, you can load the new bios and TRY and recover the main. I've been pretty successful. When up and going make sure you install driver checker, go to HP, and make sure bios is current. It will also reinstall any other missing or out of date drivers. Last one I did was a dell, 14 months old, manufactures response to a 14 month old BRICKED $1800 laptop, thanks for buying Dell, you should have purchased the extended warranty. I was always a HP guy, switched to Dell, my Inspiron 15 3000 was a POS out of the gate, I refuse to fix my own crap, especially when it has a manufactures warranty on it, they screwed me around until it was out of their warranty while unresolved and Omar said have a nice day.....

This is what I bought:

M.2 SATA SSD to USB 3.0 External SSD Reader Converter Adapter Enclosure with UASP, Support NGFF M.2 2280 2260 2242 2230 SSD with Key B/Key B+M(Can't Fit for PCIe NVMe/PCIe AHCI with Key M)

Buy M.2 SATA SSD to USB 3.0 External SSD Reader Converter Adapter Enclosure with UASP, Support NGFF M.2 2280 2260 2242 2230 SSD with Key B/Key B+M(Can't Fit for PCIe NVMe/PCIe AHCI with Key M) at Amazon. Customer reviews and photos may be available to help you make the right purchase decision!

www.amazon.com

Pay attention, there's different style SSD, so different readers. I've had more SSD failures in one year than I have since fixing computers. I'll stick with the standard 1 TB for $43 off Ebay....

 

[Larsmc312]

So I found mention of that happening, but not much useful info on how to avoid it.
Back to backing the thing up and keeping a recovery USB handy.
[sigh]

 

[minnie1967]

So I found mention of that happening, but not much useful info on how to avoid it.
Back to backing the thing up and keeping a recovery USB handy.
[sigh]

If you have one drive on, it saves all your stuff. It will not save programs, just the basics.

 

[Larsmc312]

Well, if it happens again, I'll worry about it then. This laptop is for a grandkid with learning disabilities to watch films and such. the flicks are on the home network and it doesn't take long to reload the OS,

I'll keep an eye out for a BIOS update.

 

[minnie1967]

Well, if it happens again, I'll worry about it then. This laptop is for a grandkid with learning disabilities to watch films and such. the flicks are on the home network and it doesn't take long to reload the OS,

I'll keep an eye out for a BIOS update.

Then do bare minimum to get it going. One drive is the same as a back up. It will do your documents, pictures,... It will not restore programs. Bitlocker can't stop you from reformatting the HD/SSD.

 

[minnie1967]

Then do bare minimum to get it going. One drive is the same as a back up. It will do your documents, pictures,... It will not restore programs. Bitlocker can't stop you from reformatting the HD/SSD.

You'll figure it out! If not ask! Walk in the park.

 

[Larsmc312]

I'm thinking that I can set up a bootable OS on USB, and then get into the disk to see the event log before I reinstall. That may give a clue. Since it is only the OS or BIOS that thinks that Bitlocker has been triggered, and the HD probably is not really encrypted. It might be worth a try.
If nothing else, I can pull the HD out of the laptop and explore it. Just not sure how easy it is to see the event log, separate from the actual OS. I know with NT there used to be a way of doing that. But that was a very long time ago.
But, this may never happen, again, too. We'll see how it goes.

 

[minnie1967]

All you can do is try. Get a SSD reader and plug it in. The ones I've ran into I couldn't get past bitlocker and just reformatted and reinstalled. If you can get the SSD to load a new OS, you should have a file saved with the old windows info on it.

 

[spunk.funk]

This should help

BitLocker issues troubleshooting - Windows Client

Describes approaches for investigating BitLocker issues, including how to gather diagnostic information.

learn.microsoft.com

How To Access And View Event Logs In Windows Recovery Environment » leewoodhouse.com

If you have a Windows machine that won't boot, being able to manipulate and view the event logs from the command prompt in Recovery Mode may help you discover the root cause. » Information on how to get into the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) can be found here from Microsoft. To access and...

www.leewoodhouse.com

 

[minnie1967]

This should help

BitLocker issues troubleshooting - Windows Client

Describes approaches for investigating BitLocker issues, including how to gather diagnostic information.

learn.microsoft.com

How To Access And View Event Logs In Windows Recovery Environment » leewoodhouse.com

If you have a Windows machine that won't boot, being able to manipulate and view the event logs from the command prompt in Recovery Mode may help you discover the root cause. » Information on how to get into the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) can be found here from Microsoft. To access and...

www.leewoodhouse.com

Wrong. Bitlocker is activated. There's no reading anything, The computer is now encrypted. Uless you supply the keys you don't have. You're locked out. Period.

 

[Larsmc312]

Yeah, some of that might be useful if working on a PC that had bitlocker legitimately enabled and then had a failure.
But I'm going to be troubleshooting a PC in which Bitlocker tripped even though it was never enabled, nor activated.

 

[minnie1967]

Yeah, some of that might be useful if working on a PC that had bitlocker legitimately enabled and then had a failure.
But I'm going to be troubleshooting a PC in which Bitlocker tripped even though it was never enabled, nor activated.

Faulty bios normally trips it. If you have a mocrosoft account, you can contact them to see if they have your keys on record.

 

[Larsmc312]

Faulty bios normally trips it. If you have a mocrosoft account, you can contact them to see if they have your keys on record.

I am not confident that MS will have a key to a Bitlocker that was never actually activated. I presume that a key would be generated when you actually activate BitLocker on a PC.

 

[spunk.funk]

Microsoft should be able to help whether you have confidence in them or not.

 

[minnie1967]

Microsoft should be able to help whether you have confidence in them or not.

Bahh haa haa! Microsoft isn't here to help you. My windows keys should be stored on their website. So should my office keys. If I activated butlocker, that too. I just looked under support, NOTHING! There's a way to pull them out of a working computer, but they will not assist you so you're screwed. Years ago, I mean years ago, you activated your big toe, they kept your keys. But there's no money in that for them if they give them back to you.

 

[Larsmc312]

Microsoft should be able to help whether you have confidence in them or not.

Allow me a moment to wax philosophic.
I've been working with Microsoft since the IBM PC days.
I'm sure that, were I persistent enough, I could find a live person, somewhere who may have information that I need from Microsoft. But, they don't make it easy, at all.

However, if you have not enabled BitLocker, they are not going to have a key for you. That key is generated when you activate BitLocker on a particular machine.
And, they make it pretty clear that they cannot provide that key to you, even if it was generated:
:
Important: If your device is asking you for your BitLocker recovery key, there is no "back door," there are no workarounds, and Microsoft support can't provide you with the missing key or create a new one for you. You will need that 48-digit key to unlock your device.
:
You BL key is YOUR responsibility, not theirs.

I have five active Win 10 Licensed units, none of them have ever had Bitlocker activated. And, consequently, I doubt that I could get Microsoft to dig up a key for any of them, no matter how much I tried.

So, I would bet money that a PC in which an unactuated BL popped due to a BIOS error is not going to have a BL key hiding in Microsoft's closet.

And, BTW, I think this thread has probably reached EoL , and can be marked as resolved.