BitLocker locked my external harddrive by itself?!

I'm a Software Engineer and use a 2TB external Seagate drive to backup my work, I've been using this same workflow for about 8 months without a problem.

Yesterday, I turned my Windows 10 Pro machine on and the Seagate drive was encrypted.

I was never prompted to enable Bitlocker, and more importantly at no point was the opportunity to save or print the unlock key presented to me. This all happened in the background without my knowledge.

My theory? If Windows suffers a system or security exception it encrypts all the external drives at startup.

Obviously, like others, I'm completely furious. It's pretty scandalous that Microsoft have let this continue for YEARS without ever even acknowledging it. I'm going to have to raise it with some tech news outlets as users should be clearly aware that there is a risk in using USB drives with Windows.

Who needs ransomware when we have Microsoft.

When the f*** will microsoft aknowledge this issue ??? All the posters here would lie or have forgotten that they turned on bitlocker ? That can't be a coincidence ! FFS, is it that complicated to at least admit that microsoft support can be wrong and start doing your troubleshouting job ?

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Communities.

As I understand that you are unable to access your external hard disc and you get a message stating “The drive is locked by bit locker”.

BitLocker Drive Encryption will lock an encrypted drive and require recovery in these situations:

1. BitLocker has detected a possible security risk during startup.
2. BitLocker startup key or PIN is lost, or the startup key is damaged.

Note 1: if a drive is locked using Bit Locker there is no way you can unlock it without the key. if you don’t have the key you cannot access the Drive. The key or the Recovery drive is the only way to access your drive back.

Note 2: Bit Locker will not be enabled automatically.

Regain access to a computer locked by BitLocker Drive Encryption:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-drive-encryption

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Communities.

I have the very same problem. My external hard drive was locked by bitlocker which I never have used. So I can not have any "security key". How can Microsoft do these kind of "systems"?

The same thing happened to me.  I never even knew there was such a thing as bitlocker, let alone how to lock it.  Now my external hard drive with all my music, photos backed up is unusable.  I am extremely upset about this.