Bitlocker seems to have locked a drive without me even knowing. Unable to unlock

Question

Bitlocker seems to have locked a drive without me even knowing. Unable to unlock

88144450 0

I have a new DELL Optiplex 7000 which was upgraded from Windows 10 to 11 (Pro), immediately after initial setup. It is maintained at the latest available version. This is replacing an old DELL Precision T5500 which runs Win 10 (Pro also up to date).

I NEVER used or set BitLocker or ANY other encryption on any of my machines.

The problem occurred after I moved (added) my Data Drive e(Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc.) from my T5500 to my Optiplex 7000 in order to continue using it as such: firstly, it froze without apparent reason and came back after several reboot attempts with a silly message regarding DELL SafeBios -Then the Disk became sporadically unavailable (with just an yellow exclamation mark by the drive letter, no explaining note about what or why)

-A few hours later, it became totally unavailable, saying Locked with BitLocker..

As said, I never enabled Bitlocker, there are no Bitlocker keys in my MS Account associated with this machines.

Furthermore, when I try to unlock it it says

"The bitlocker encryption on this drive isn’t compatible with your version of windows. Try opening the drive using a newer version of Windows"

My Windows 11 Pro are up to date and there is no record of a key or anything that can help me unlock the drive (which I have NEVER locked in the first place).

Any attempt on other machine other port, internally (SATA) or externally (USB3) have the same result.

This is clearly a buggy situation. Please help!

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Thameur-BOURBITA 36,261 Moderator

Hi @88144450

I think you should try to unlock the disk using windows 10 not Windows 11 that's why you get the error because the disk was encrypted by a machine Windows 10.

Next time ,when you want upgrade your machine or change hardware try to start by turned off bitlocker i all encrypted disks.

Please don't forget to accept helpful answer

88144450 0 Reputation points

2023-12-27T00:24:10.7633333+00:00
Hi,

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately does not respond to my described problem:

I never enabled or used BitLocker on any of my machines.

I tried to move the drive back to my old machine (T5500 with Win 10 Pro) and unlock it with the same results.

The Drive was working in the new System for a couple of days before it started to show the yellow triangle with ! and open , later closed Lock.

In the mean time, my other 2 drives I installed in this machine, both brand new SSDs, one M.2 nVMe, one SATA, just showed this initial yellow triangle with an open lock. Exactly like the initial sign with the HDD...
The System Disk (C:, factory installed) hasn't shown any sign at all. ALL DISKS ARE UN_ENCRYPTED.
The ONLY common thing among the 3 Drives with problems is that they are third party, not DELL Part Numbers...?

I am now afraid to open the System not to loose another (or both) Drives in the same way.

I am wondering if the last BIOS update caused all this strange situation.

In any case, I need to recover my data.

One last detail that might help troubleshooting:

when issuing manage-bde - status at command line, the reply for the problematic HDD was "Unknown" for the first 4 lines then some type of error. it DOES NOT SHOW THE DRIVE AS LOCKED OR ENCRYPTED...

For the other 3 Drives everything is reported correctly and normal.

Answer 2

Anonymous

Hello

Based on my search, some reasons could cause auto enable Bitlocker encryption. You could check the Device encryption part in the link below.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/operating-system-security/data-protection/bitlocker/#device-encryption

If a device doesn't initially qualify for device encryption, but then a change is made that causes the device to qualify (for example, by turning on_Secure Boot_), device encryption enables BitLocker automatically as soon as it detects it. Or When a clean installation of Windows is completed and the out-of-box experience is finished, the device is prepared for first use. As part of this preparation, device encryption is initialized on the OS drive and fixed data drives on the computer with a clear key that is the equivalent of standard BitLocker suspended state. In this state, the drive is shown with a warning icon in Windows Explorer.

So I consider that you updated the BIOS meet some function and change the hardware.

Maybe also could use manage-bde -off E: to check.

Check Bitlocker FAQ:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/operating-system-security/data-protection/bitlocker/faq

Can I access my BitLocker-protected drive if I insert the hard disk into a different computer?

Yes, if the drive is a data drive, it can be unlocked from the BitLocker Drive Encryption Control Panel item by using a password or smart card. If the data drive was configured for automatic unlock only, it will need to be unlocked by using the recovery key. The encrypted hard disk can be unlocked by a data recovery agent (if one was configured) or it can be unlocked by using the recovery key.

If I lose my recovery information, will the BitLocker-protected data be unrecoverable?

BitLocker is designed to make the encrypted drive unrecoverable without the required authentication. When in recovery mode, the user needs the recovery password or recovery key to unlock the encrypted drive.

Best Regards

88144450 0 Reputation points

2023-12-28T08:08:31.6233333+00:00
Hi Hania,

Thank you for your reply. It seems that in the first part you offer a plausible explanation, at least to a point:

Yes, after I added the extra drives, the system offerred a mandatory / critical update, regarding the BIOS and some other components.

The BIOS initiated DELL SafeBIOS which probably initialized the BitLocker on ONE of the 4 Drives (warning "!"), NOT the SYSTEM DISK. Later on, WITHOUT me doing ANYTHING regarding the BitLocker, this Disk became unavailable. There was no key, no nothing. So, how can I save my data if the system takes such initiatives without me being able to do anything?

Last and probably not least: a couple of days later, the other 2 Data Drives (NOT THE SYSTEM DRIVE) turned on the warning... (By the way, the warning did not really warn me of what is wrong and what needs to be done, so what kind of warning is this?)

My troubleshooting attempts:

I downgraded the BIOS. DELL SafeBIOS is gone but the drives status is the same.

I initialized the BitLocker on the 2 Drives with the warning and then turned it off (since I do not want it)

The Locked disk remains inaccessible both to manage-bde and GUI tools

The System Disk did not get any warnings yet

I upgraded back the BIOS since it was critical.

I am in the same situation as before with the only change that the 2 extra drives seem safe for the moment

Any ideas on how to deal with this?
88144450 0 Reputation points

2023-12-28T13:13:10.82+00:00
Hi Hania,

Thank you for your reply. It seems that in the first part you offer a plausible explanation, at least to a point:

Yes, after I added the extra drives, the system offerred a mandatory / critical update, regarding the BIOS and some other components.

The BIOS initiated DELL SafeBIOS which probably initialized the BitLocker on ONE of the 4 Drives (warning "!"), NOT the SYSTEM DISK. Later on, WITHOUT me doing ANYTHING regarding the BitLocker, this Disk became unavailable. There was no key, no nothing. So, how can I save my data if the system takes such initiatives without me being able to do anything?

Last and probably not least: a couple of days later, the other 2 Data Drives (NOT THE SYSTEM DRIVE) turned on the warning... (By the way, the warning did not really warn me of what is wrong and what needs to be done, so what kind of warning is this?)

My troubleshooting attempts:

I downgraded the BIOS. DELL SafeBIOS is gone but the drives status is the same.

I initialized the BitLocker on the 2 Drives with the warning and then turned it off (since I do not want it)

The Locked disk remains inaccessible both to manage-bde and GUI tools

The System Disk did not get any warnings yet

I upgraded back the BIOS since it was critical.

I am in the same situation as before with the only change that the 2 extra drives seem safe for the moment

Any ideas on how to deal with this?

Best Regards,

Stavros
88144450 0 Reputation points

2023-12-28T18:56:26.7966667+00:00
The one element that seems strangest to me and escapes any explanation till now is the following:

The Drive seemed locked by BitLocker.

When tried to unlock it says that it is not compatible and that to try to unlock on a newer version of Windows (there isn't one)

when checked under manage-bde -status, it gives Unknown for the first few lines and then an Error

there was no key generated or any message regarding the Encryption procedure

So, to my logic, it seems that it could be an "uncompleted BitLocked drive" or even a "falsely reported BitLocker drive" - the terms are obviously arbitrary but I hope, descriptive.

To conclude, the drive is not accessible/responding to any BitLocker tools available to me (therefore it doesn't even require a key or other form of authentication). The only pointing to BitLocker is the File Manager. Is that conclusive?

Maybe is a totally different problem altogether?

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Bitlocker seems to have locked a drive without me even knowing. Unable to unlock

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