Bit Locker Recovery Key Requested at Boot Time

You can see the Bitlocker setting by starting Control Panel.  You than select System and Security.  One of the sections you then see is Administration, and under that section you will see “Create and format drive partitions”. Click on it, and you will see your disk setup. Take care not to change anything here without considering the consequences. They may be serious!

I have described the steps shown on my Surface 2, which has a Danish setup, and have translated the steps into English. If they are not exactly the same as what is shown on your Surface 2, find something what looks like it, it can’t be much different.

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Wim

MCITP Server Administrator

I also have not seen an ”Activate Windows” option.

In response to James Godfrey: Bit Locker indeed protects the information stored on the disk of a stolen Surface 2. Criminals can’t simply take it out and connect it to another device for processing. But if a Surface 2 risks to lose the Bit Locker key due to, what I also think, an update process, then the user has a problem.

The Surface 2 is not sold with an enclosed statement from Microsoft to copy the Bit Locker key as soon as possible. Neither mentions Microsoft in its enclosed support documentation the website from which one can retrieve the key. Nor is a user informed that Bit Locker is activated. Users who have experience with Bit Locker do understand the problem, but most users don’t. And they are faced with a problem if the error occurs. Particularly if they don’t have a keyboard attached, as the display keyboard can’t be activated.

I myself do not intend to store any valuable information on the Surface. If the device is stolen, passwords of e-mail accounts and the Microsoft account can quickly be changed. So as long as Microsoft isn’t giving any response that the problem has been recognized and that a patch is on its way, I really prefer to disable Bit Locker for reasons of stability. I don’t want to risk being in a remote location without the Bit Locker key in my pocket and without other computer facilities at hand to retrieve it from Microsoft’s website.

I suggest once more that Microsoft informs us about the status of the issue.  The tech media will hear about the problem sooner or later.

Thanks.

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Wim

MCITP Server Administrator

I'm a bit puzzled by some of the responses above.   I got snagged by BitLocker after an update.  There is no "Activate Windows" option on PC settings.  There is no BitLocker icon in Control Panel.   Where are you guys seeing that your C: is encrypted by Bit Locker?

MS needs to fix this before the tech media get ahold of it; but don't expect any useful replies here, from MS.   Really, they should change the name of this forum from Microsoft Answers to Microsoft Questions, because that's all you'll generally find here: other people with the same problem.

Yes, it would be nice to hear something from Microsoft on this besides the one response that doesn't seem to apply to RT.

See my post... activate windows

Thanks for the suggestion but if I go under settings it already indicates my copy of Windows has been activated. There is no option to try to activate it again. Just to be clear, my recovery prompt only seems to get triggered once after I apply a firmware update (at least that seems to be the common thing I notice). Once I enter the password I can shutdown and reboot fine after that and never see the recovery prompt again until the next update.