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The BitLocker recovery screen appears when booting after a Windows update

FYI in case anyone else is seeing this. Since last week we've had around 35 computers go into Bitlocker Recovery, which I have had to pull the key from Active Directory to get the computer working again. I found nothing on it until this morning and thought it was something in my environment. I suspected a Microsoft update but nothing in the event logs confirmed it. Their suggested fix is to update firmware however I have had this happen on laptops with the most current BIOS (Dell). Once the key is entered everything works fine again.

Best Answered by

Amanda Wong

Answered on Tuesday, August 27, 2024

When you see the BitLocker recovery screen on your Windows computer, it indicates the BitLocker recovery mode is triggered due to a malicious attempt by a person or software to change the startup environment. You have to enter the right BitLocker recovery key so that you can use the computer normally and access the drive data.

Windows 10 boots into the BitLocker recovery screen and requests the recovery key as long as something interferes with the Windows startup process and changes the hash, which does not match what BitLocker expects. Therefore, it's normal to see the BitLocker recovery screen after a Windows update, this is how BitLocker works to protect your data.

Just enter the right BitLocker drive encryption recovery key and you can reaccess the drive. You can find the BitLocker recovery key in your Microsoft account, on a USB flash drive, in a txt file on your computer, or in Active Directory. If you lost the recovery key, you can not access the drive anymore.

In case you lose data from a BitLocker encrypted drive, try iBoysoft Data Recovery to retrieve it!