Home > Questions

The BitLocker Encryption on This Drive isn't Compatible with Your Version of Windows

I was transferring data from my SSD to an HDD on my old Windows 10 home PC. During the process, my PC froze and I had to reboot it. However, after the reboot, I received an error saying that my drive might be damaged or isn't working properly. I then found that BitLocker was automatically enabled on that hard drive. I've never had it enabled before. When I click on the drive it says: The BitLocker Encryption on This Drive isn't Compatible with Your Version of Windows. I also don't have the recovery key since I never turned BitLocker on by myself. I tried using the drive on my Windows 11 PC and get the same message. There are important work on that locked drive. Can somebody help me remove the BitLocker encryption and get my data back?

Best Answered by

Jenny Zeng

Answered on Monday, April 29, 2024

It's not normal for BitLocker to be enabled on your Windows 10 Home PC because it's not supported. I guess that's why you receive the message, "The BitLocker Encryption on This Drive isn't Compatible with Your Version of Windows."

I suggest you try to recover data from the BitLocker-encrypted drive with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows and then reformat the drive to remove the encryption. I recommend this data recovery tool because it has a dedicated BitLocker recovery module its users find extremely useful for retrieving data from BitLocker-encrypted drives.

It also has an excellent recovery rate and is compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP. You can scan and preview the files for free. Follow the steps below to recover data from BitLocker-encrypted drives:

Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows.

Step 2: Launch the software and select the "BitLocker Recovery" module.

Step 3: Select the  BitLocker-encrypted drive and click Next.

Step 4: Enter the password or recovery key and click OK. (How to Find BitLocker Recovery Key & Do BitLocker Recovery?)

Step 5: Preview found files from the BitLocker drive.

Step 6: Select the files you want to recover, click the Recover button, and save the files to another storage device.