I'm in the same position as all of you. This is an absurd oversight on Microsoft's part. Incredibly frustrated and ready to join that class action lawsuit. At a minimum, the Office Space party sounds fun.
Bitlocker enabled itself on Windows 10 Home edition without a notice and without permission
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
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
104 answers
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Anonymous
2022-11-14T00:01:35+00:00 -
Anonymous
2022-11-23T16:08:32+00:00 Im trying to activate bitlocker in an Asus with Intel (yes, TPM2.0) because I saw an Asus Vivobook Ryzen 5600h Windows Home edition with bitlocker enabled by default, even when I restored such ryzen powered some times.
So, whats the deal? I would like bitlocked on my personal computer without paying a lot just for that functionality.
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Anonymous
2023-01-23T01:26:54+00:00 Sorry to let you know, your statement is wrong. I have a laptop that has BitLocker installed and active without my permission. I am not sure if the HP came that way with windows home 11 now with 22H2 loaded. I can go into Device Encryption and turn it off which would decrypt the drive. My other two desktops do not have Bitlocker available.
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Anonymous
2023-01-23T13:34:39+00:00 Greg,
I don't want to be that guy, but I oversee a few hundred laptops, and this sudden encryption problem has happened a few times now. It seems like updating the BIOS may have something to do with it. I am just saying "There is no possible way bitlocker can install itself" seems questionable. It may be that Microsoft gives the basic user a choice that is heavily influenced to agree to, but I have had 2 users say they did not install it, and they have no idea what the password could be because they never entered one.
Always remember, we are working with Microsoft, and they do have a history of updates that cause large problems.
Doug
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Anonymous
2023-02-27T22:34:56+00:00 I own a computer repair shop in MI, I've seen this a lot starting around sept of last year (2022). Yes it's on HOME editions, not Pro or other and it is being activated without user consent (90% of the people don't even know what it is!), I've had to reset about a dozen and was able to get access to the keys for another couple dozen so yeah something going wrong on Windows side. Thankfully it does store your recovery key in your MS account if you have access but if you don't your up a creek.
Additionally, after this error, I've seen installer packages not recognize the version of Windows you have installed and refuse to install (specifically Nvidia drivers). No apparent fix but to reinstall.