Bitlocker enabled itself on Windows 10 Home edition without a notice and without permission

Anonymous
2022-06-29T22:51:13+00:00

After three years of owning a Dell Inspiron 13 (Windows Home) the computer somehow enabled Bitlocker on its own and encrypted my C: drive. Since I did not activate Bitlocker, I don't have the keys to decrypt the drive. My Microsoft account does not list any keys in it so there is no way to recover the keys as far as I know. Therefore none of the published solutions I have seen can work because they all assume that I have access to the keys. I see many similar complaints online (at least since 2018) and hundreds of "likes" so this appears to be a relatively common problem.

When booting, I see a message titled "BitLocker recovery" and it asks for the recovery key. It then says to "try your work or school account at: aka.ms/aadrecoverykey."

This suggests that the key may be associated with some active directory domain away from my computer. However, the admin account on this computer has, to my knowledge, never logged into an active directory domain, although non-admin users have. And, if the Amin account has connected to a Active Directory somewhere, I sure as heck did not give them a permission to encrypt my drive and lock me out of my computer, and give the key to some third party "work or school" account. If this is what happened, Microsoft, you have a serious security issue where third parties can effectively encrypt hard drives without permission using Microsoft's own tools. That is ransomware - without the ransom. But, this is still just a theory vaguely supported by this link https://hardsoft-support.kayako.com/article/99-windows-10-bitlocker-turns-on-without-a-notice

Here is a quote from the post: "Dell and Lenovo systems that ship with the Windows 10 operating system and are equipped with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) capability will have Microsoft BitLocker encryption enabled from the factory. It has been found that once the device is registered to a Active Directory domain - Office 365 Azure AD, Windows 10 automatically encrypts the system drive. You find this once you reboot your computer and are then prompted for the BitLocker key."

Since I don't know what possible organization could have encrypted the drive, and since I don't have admin access to them, the instructions in the article don't apply.

The laptop is Dell Inspiron 13 7370 - which I don't even think has a TPM chip built in it. BIOS is version 1.20.0. ePSA build is 4306.13 UEFI ROM.

So, Microsoft, how does this get fixed?

P.S. My other computers have Win10 Pro and and they have Bitlocker turned on, but this computer intentionally did not have Bitlocker turned on - and it was not supposed to be possible to turn on bitlocker on a Win10 Home edition. I am mentioning this to highlight that I did not "accidentally" trigger the Bitlocker being turned on - especially because it requires many steps and confirmations. The drive was simply encrypted one day with permission from me.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Security and privacy

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-08-29T01:50:07+00:00

    I had the same thing happen to me today. I see your post was from 8/25, I did not use this particular computer until today, but it appears to have been activated by itself.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-08-25T12:54:48+00:00

    No longer a true statement. Bitlocker did, in fact, activate itself and encrypted drives without owner consent or action. There are likely thousands of people this morning who can no longer access anything on their computers. I know for a fact because my Mother and Father in law have a couple of boat anchors sitting in their den with the Dell label on them. Google Windows KB5012170 update causing BitLocker recovery screens, boot issues.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-08-22T09:06:20+00:00

    Hello ,

    I work for a big company authorised repair shop for a spesific brand.

    So i see a lot of notebook where the Windows OC has came with the unit , after some updates on the windows the bitlocker activates .So i want to ask Microsoft what shoud we tell the client when he comes and tell us the problem is bitlocker and he doesn't have a key in the MC account.We cure the problem only with instaling a fresh new windows.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-06-29T23:34:00+00:00

    Hi K. I'm Greg, 10 years awarded Windows MVP, here to help you.

    There is no possible way Bitlocker can install itself. It doesn't even apply to Home version without a major hack being done, which also cannot possibly be done by itself.

    If ti was Pro version it could have been done at the factory but they should have seen to it the key was stored in the new owner's Microsoft Account. Check there now just in case:

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fin...

    If not try these to see if you can turn it off or uninstall it:

    https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/how-to-turn...

    https://www.repairwin.com/how-to-remove-bitlock...

    Then see if you can recover your files:

    https://www.howtogeek.com/263561/how-to-recover...

    If not then there's one last thing to try before wiping the drive with Diskpart Clean Command to get rid of Bitlocker and reinstall WIndows. Try rescuiing your files using bootable media by one of these methods:

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for...

    To create bootable media Follow the steps toward the bottom of the download page here in the section "Using the tool to create installation media:"

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/software-downlo...

    Then wipe the drive with Clean Command:

    https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/85819-erase...

    and Reinstall Windows doing this gold standard Clean Install that compiles the best possible Install of Windows which will stay that way as long as you stick with the tools and methods given, has zero reported problems, and is better than any amount of money could buy: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki....

    Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the results you post back I may have other suggestions if necessary.

    ______________________________________________

    Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

    Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the results you post back I may have other suggestions if necessary.

    ______________________________________________

    Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

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