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HP updated BIOS which turned on BitLocker and locked and encrypted my drive. I never set up BitLocker so I don't have the key or a password. It is not saved in my Microsoft account since I never set it up. BestBuy set up my laptop and transferred files from my old computer last November but they don't have the key. They claim the manufacturers are turning it on when they're shipped. HP states they don't have the key. HP has also stated it's a known problem with HP Envy laptops but they don't have a fix or workaround. Microsoft wasn't any help either. They claimed HP should have the code and of course they state they don't. So far the only advice I've gotten is I'll have to reload a fresh Windows 10 and will lose all my data files, which I'm trying to avoid. I've looked in the registry editor and there are things there for BitLocker. I didn't want to make any changes w/o knowing what they might do but on the other hand it's a doorstop now so I'm not sure how I could make it worse. Anyone have any ideas how to get around this?
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
This suggestion is only applicable if you actually created a Bitlocker recovery key. Many people did not do this. Hard drives from HP and Dell have Bitlocker activated by default if you choose to use the Microsoft account as the log in instead of creating a local account.
Answer accepted by question author
Good day!
When I shut down my HP Envy laptop today, it automatically did a BIOS update. After that, I also encountered the Bitlocker issue. It was asking for recovery keys that I thought I do not have.
I followed the specified instructions. I went to aka.ms/myrecoverykey. After logging in to Microsoft account, there's no Bitlocker recovery keys in there. I've read most of the comments here and I was in the brink of resetting my laptop even if I'd lose my data. Then, I tried to log in again to Microsoft account but this time I used my another email. Fortunately, I have Bitlocker recovery keys in there. There are actually 2 recovery keys but I used the one corresponding to the recovery ID indicated in the instructions. And yay, I was able to log in to my PC again! I was only successful on my third try because I did not enter 0 using F10 key (the instructions are in Japanese).
Suggestion:
Try logging in to your Microsoft account using all the email addresses you are using or you have used. It might turn out that the recovery keys are in one of those addresses.
Thank you for all the help from this discussion! Arigatou gozaimasu! :)
I hope you can fix your PCs too.
Answer accepted by question author
If you ever used the locked laptop for your work or school, try the link with your work or school email even you never created a Microsoft account with the email. https://myaccount.microsoft.com/
It worked for my HP. Hope it helps!
This did not work. They removed the drive and connected it to another computer and it doesn't show any files due to the encryption. I have Windows Home as well. This is a hardware problem with the BIOS and drives with something called TPM, a sort of hardware BitLocker. There's TPM 1.2 and TPM 2 which apparently doesn't have this problem. The manufacturers are turning this on when shipped.
This is a known problem, as pointed out on a Microsoft help page about BitLocker. I guess Windows still turns it on when something gets switched in the BIOS as it thinks someone is trying to break in. It seems to me someone somewhere knows how to get around this. Where are the gurus who wrote these programs? You would think they would know how to circumvent this. HP or MS should set up a BitLocker key that comes with the computer or gets saved somewhere every time they do an update. I have an MS account but nothing was saved there.
So we're out of luck. The drive has to be wiped and have a clean install of Windows.
Perhaps we need to sue both HP and MS. I've spent hours on this problem over the last week and lost weeks of work. My backup drive filled up and I was in the process of saving things to a new cloud drive and had not completed it when this happened.
Good luck everyone who has this problem.
I did try that. I actually tried changing all the TPM settings one at a time and then in combination. Nothing worked. I also cleared the TPM which didn't work. And then finally I reset to the factory settings that didn't work.
I would suggest anyone else try this first but I don't think it will work.
At this point, at least for me, it's too late. I had the drive wiped and a new clean install of Windows done. I couldn't wait. I lost all my data from last November. Fortunately I had saved most of it elsewhere and can get it back. Unfortunately I lost everything from the last two months. I guess the last time my system updated the backup it ran out of space and I must have missed that.
The moral of the story is MS or HP aren't much help when it comes to these sort of problems. They don't either seem to care or know what they're doing. Personally, I feel there's someone at one of these two companies who helped write the code who would know how to get around it. There's lots of things on MS about problems with Bitlocker, including this particular problem when the BIOS updates, at least with TPM 1.2, and it turns on BitLocker. Perhaps a class action suit would set a fire under their butts to find ways to fix this type of problem.
I had even told Windows not to update but it did anyway. I always wait 2-3 weeks after they put it out to see what problems exist, as there always are, but it got me anyway.
The moral is, anytime Windows is going to update make a full image of your drive if you can. There will come a day you will need it.
Good luck to everyone else with this problem. If someone does find a fix please post it for the others who still have the problem.
