BitLocker locked my external harddrive by itself?!

I  have found that if you know the PC (it should be the last one on which you could see the content) that encrypted the drive you should be able to plug it in again and turn off bitlocker it will unencrypt your drive.

I have the same problem too. My laptop is on Windows 10 and Bitlocker was turned ON on C drive. One day, I connected an external HDD. The next day when I tried to access the external HDD, it showed that it's locked and asked me to enter a 48-digit recovery key to unlock it. What a surprise!

I am an IT person, if the drive was locked/encrypted I would have paid attention and recorded the recovery key. How on earth did I expect Bitlocker did something without my consent. I tried to look for the file that might have the same key ID but there was no match. 

It's worse than a ransom-ware, which, at least, I can pay ransom under the table to rescue the locked data. Now, I can't do anything. Microsoft did a very good job in locking my drive and hiding the recovery key (in fact, they may not even know where they save the recovery key to) and saying that there is no way to unlock the drive.

I would say there is no way that Microsoft could let this happen without thoroughly testing how Bitlocker behaves in the real world in the first place. What a company!

Should I give up on expecting a solution?

I am an IT professional and have experienced this problem twice. On both occasions I located the offending PC (they were not mine - I only connected the drive to transfer data from an old customer's PC). After connecting the drive to the offending PC turn Bitlocker off and wait until it has finished unlocking the drive - both times it was not possible to unlock just the USB drive you had to turn bitlocker off. If actually want Bitlocker on on the PC you would have to turn it back on after disconnecting the drive - an utterly ridiculous carry on every time you connect an external USB drive!

Should you expect a solution - apparently not!

What an utter disgrace.

I have the same problem too. My laptop is on Windows 10 and Bitlocker was turned ON on C drive. One day, I connected an external HDD. The next day when I tried to access the external HDD, it showed that it's locked and asked me to enter a 48-digit recovery key to unlock it. What a surprise!

I am an IT person, if the drive was locked/encrypted I would have paid attention and recorded the recovery key. How on earth did I expect Bitlocker did something without my consent. I tried to look for the file that might have the same key ID but there was no match. 

It's worse than a ransom-ware, which, at least, I can pay ransom under the table to rescue the locked data. Now, I can't do anything. Microsoft did a very good job in locking my drive and hiding the recovery key (in fact, they may not even know where they save the recovery key to) and saying that there is no way to unlock the drive.

I would say there is no way that Microsoft could let this happen without thoroughly testing how Bitlocker behaves in the real world in the first place. What a company!

Should I give up on expecting a solution?

I was locked out last night and I did not even know bitlocker existed. I closed my surface 3 for a few hours and then attempted to open it back up. Locked out. NO recovery key. I have important files that I cannot recover. 

Can anyone else provide guidance on this?

Hi Lena,

Thank you for the reply.

Sorry to hear about the inconvenience.

By default Bit locker will not  lock any drives unless it is locked by user.

If you still have any issues with Bit locker please do let us know and thank you for sharing this information.  

Hi again

Now bitlock locked a second drive . I never knew about this program so yes it acts like a virus it is locking a drive by itself. I searched on the internet and as you say there is no way to recover the data without a password. 

I can get an external Key through the bde command.

Would this help to find the password. 

I'm really devasted with this issue .