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
    2024-02-21T16:31:24+00:00

    There seems to be a learning disability with some of the replies on here.

    We know how to disable bitlocker, that is not the issue.

    The issue is that bitlocker is activating itself and without a key available.

    It seems there is no recovery at all from this.

    Why are some suggesting turning it off, yet it was never on?

    Why are some suggesting finding your key so you can recover, when there was no key?

    These people appear not to understand plain English.

    Bitlocker is activating itself without a saved key and this does happen on 'home' versions.

    Sorry but there is no way out of this other than a format and start again.

    It appears you cannot even removed the bitlocker software.

    Microsoft need to address this issue, it is no use saying that it cannot happen when it clearly does, and its no use saying it is not on Home edditions as it clearly is.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-03-07T00:18:01+00:00

    Hello,

    While I do not have time to read through all the comments, I do want to share something similar happening to me. I recently performed a clean install on a new NVME 2TB drive with Windows 10 22H1 (Home) on 10/15/2022. I am just noticing the (Bitlocker Encrypted) in Disk Management today, 3/6/2023.

    I went to Settings > Update & Security > Device encryption and low and behold it is offering for me to disable it, when I did not come here to enable it.

    I have been able to press the disable button here and it is in the midst of decrypting the drive now. If I do not reply again, it was successful. I will make another post if I am forced to perform a reinstall.

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  3. 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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  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-14T00:01:35+00:00

    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.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-10-21T19:41:49+00:00

    That is a terrible thing to put parents through. Shame on MS.

    But I feel your pain: By the time I went through all of those steps to get into my MS Account (which I don't access on a regular basis), the Recovery Key was not there.

    My only guess as to why: when Geek Squad installed MS365, they were not logged into my MS Account. And...I now know that BitLocker is not mentioned in the MS365 installation process even though it defaults to On, so Geek Squad didn't know to save it.

    Lost about two months of data. Gone. Forever.

    Also lost hours of time trying to learn all I could about Bit Locker before I gave up, including 1.5 hours chatting with MS Support only to have my problem repeated back to me with the proverbial "it shouldn't do that." No kidding it shouldn't do that, but it did.

    I just installed MS365 on a brand new laptop. I was logged into my MS Account. No mention of Bit Locker. I went straight to the Device Encryption screen - default is set to On.

    btw: I saved the recovery key, turned it off, then turned it on again. The key had changed! So, if it gets turned on again by someone other than me while logged into my MS Account....

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