Bitlocker encrypted corrupt usb drive.

Question

I have a seagate usb 3 external hard drive. it has been bitlocker encrypted. It has also been damaged in some way.

When I boot my machine with legacy setup in the bios most usb drives show up (flash drive and another external usb 3 drive). The problem drive is not showing up.

When I let the machine boot under uefi/Windows 10 sees the drive but it has three partitions. One shows as RAW but healthy and active. It also shows 2 unallocated drives. This drive was always just one drive.

When I run the diagnostics from Seagate (it is a seagate drive) it says it is fine.

When I try to access the drive in windows it asks if I want to format the drive before I can use it.

I have lots on the drive. I don't know what happened. I shut the system down for a while and when I plugged everything back in it didn't work.

So...I am assuming I can't just recover files because it is encrypted. So how do I get the files and get them unencrypted?

Help!

Answer 1

1. no, it doesn't work on another pc.
2. error messages below.
3. I do have the bitlocker recovery key.

Thanks for the help.

Answer 2

Hi Patriq,

Thanks for the reply and appreciate your efforts to work on this issue.

As you have a Bitlocker encrypted USB drive and as there is data in that drive which is not backed up, you may want to refer to this article to know more about this topic.

‘BitLocker Recovery Guide’.

Further, you may also want to post your question in the TechNet Forums where we have support professionals who are well-equipped with the knowledge and skill to handle queries regarding BitLocker and data recovery.

Regards,

Srimadhwa B

Microsoft Community-Moderator

Answer 3

Thanks for the reply. 

I was wondering about the effects of bitlocker. Since the drive was encrypted what would file recovery look like. I am assuming bitlocker encryption may eliminate the possibility of recovery because you cant unencrypt what you cant find. What would a damaged bitlocker drive look like to data recovery software or technicians?

Anyone know anything about bitlocker and data recovery?

Thanks.

Answer 4

Hi,

Thanks for the reply with screenshots and appreciate your efforts to work on this issue.

Sometimes hard drives or other storage mediums become inaccessible and show RAW file system. Windows can read and access certain file systems such as FAT, FAT32, NTFS, etc. But when there is no file system (it’s RAW), Windows simply cannot read it.

A drive can become RAW due to bad sectors, corrupted file system, or even a failing hard drive itself.

As there is data on the drive which is not backed up, suggest you to try using a third party program or service to recover the data from the hard drive. Once the data is backed up, you can format the drive and use it.

You may use your favorite search engine to search for a third party recovery tool.

Note: Using Third Party Software, including hardware drivers can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Third Party Software can be solved. Using Third Party Software is at your own risk.

Regards,

Srimadhwa B

Microsoft Community-Moderator

Answer 5

Hi Patriq,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Community Forums.

Appreciate your efforts to work on this issue.

I can understand the situation must be difficult for you when the Bitlocker encrypted USB drive doesn't work as it should.

Please answer these questions to get more clarity on this issue:

1. Does the USB drive work on a different PC?
2. What is the error code or message you get while trying to access the USB drive?
3. Do you have the Bitlocker recovery key for the external hard disk?.

However, let us follow these methods to ensure that the USB drive gets recognized on the PC. Once this is done then you can use the encryption key to decrypt the drive after which you can access the files on the drive. As there is data on the drive which is not backed up, suggest you not to format the drive as this action will result in data loss.

Method 1: Plug in the USB drive into another PC to check if the drive gets recognized and if yes, then you can try to access the files in the drive.

Method 2: As you are able to see the drive when you boot under UEFI, suggest you to run check disk to fix any bad sectors on the external hard drive and check if that helps.

Check Disk or Chkdsk.exe is a built-in Windows utility used to check for errors in the disk media and in the file system. The Check Disk utility or ChkDsk.exe checks file system errors, bad sectors, lost clusters, and so on.

Note: While performing check disk on the hard drive if any bad sectors are found on the hard drive when chkdsk tries to repair that sector if any data available on that might be lost.

1. Open Command Prompt in admin mode. Click Start, type ‘Command Prompt’ and you’ll see “Command Prompt” listed as the main result. Right-click that result and choose “Run as administrator”.
2. Once CMD window is open, type ‘chkdsk (Your problem drive letter without parentheses): /x. This forces the volume to dismount. Also invalidates all open file handles.

Once this is done, restart the computer and see if that makes any difference.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Srimadhwa B

Microsoft Community-Moderator