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My friend's windows 11 laptop got C: bitlocker encrypted, recently he also forgot the password to the admin account and the bitlocker, is it possible to change the password through a bootable windows 11 usb?
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First, you have to unlock your BitLocker encrypted drive with a password or backup key.
After unlocking the drive, there is an option to change BitLocker password. Go with this option and change your BitLocker encrypted drive password.
If he set up BitLocker with a recovery key and stored it in a safe place (like a printed hard copy), he could use the recovery key to unlock the BitLocker encryption. Otherwise, it seems he lost his data.
but still, is it possible to change the password without the bitlocker key?
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Hi.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to reset the password or unlock the drive without the BitLocker recovery key. BitLocker is designed to protect your data from unauthorized access, so it's very secure and resistant to brute-force attacks.
If you have a bootable windows 11 usb, you can format the disk and change the password, but the data on the disk will disappear.
Hope the information is helpful.
Best Regards,
Hania Lian
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It is easily possible for technicians.
You would boot windows setup from a USB stick, press Shift F10 to get a command prompt, mount the c: drive using the manage-bde -unlock c: -rp 124536-.....-226545
(using your 48-digit numerical recovery password)
and after mounting it, you would edit its registry offline as outlined here: https://4sysops.com/archives/when-the-trust-relationship-between-a-workstation-and-the-primary-ad-domain-fails/#rtoc-3 (these steps apply, although the topic seems unrelated at first).