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

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.

0 comments

104 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2023-10-04T10:31:06+00:00

    Funny listening to people who have no idea what they are talking about, hp or dell or lego has absolutely nothing to do with bitlocker, it part of windows, its purpose is to prevent someone from removing your drive and reading the data , thats it , if not for business, turn it off , bitlocker only works on windows pro, Microsoft recommends dell and hp to turn it on by default in their immage, thats it, home windows has device encryption, not bitlocker, either way, turn it off in settings, privacy and security.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2023-10-04T10:20:02+00:00

    Incorrect, Bitlocker is only on Pro versions of windows, not Home,

    also you can turn it off in control panel, other way is turn off TPM in bios,

    in home you can use device encryption, NOT Bitlocker

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2023-10-04T07:33:23+00:00

    Fyi: Virtually all HP laptops now come with Bitlocker enabled by default.

    Too bad they don't put a sticky or something on the laptop alerting people to this:

    "BitLocker Encryption is enabled, by default, on computers that support Modern Standby. This is true regardless of the Windows 10 version (Home, Pro, etc.) is installed.It is vital that you back up your BitLocker recovery key, and that you know how to retrieve it. Do not rely on keeping the key solely on the computer. If you cannot access the key when needed, you will lose access to all data on encrypted drives.

    NOTE:  One routine reason for needing the BitLocker recovery key is in case of performing updates that affect the TPM data, including BIOS updates. See the following HP Knowledge Base article on how to tell if your drives or devices are encrypted and on saving and retrieving your BitLocker key:

    Anyhow, here is a link to their help document:

    https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06458046#:~:text=BitLocker%20Encryption%20is%20enabled%2C%20by,key%20solely%20on%20the%20computer.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2023-10-04T07:23:29+00:00

    Hi Greg, I am not OP, but I wanted to let you know that in fact, Bitlocker definitely is installed and activated on many Windows Home laptops by default (and on quite a few more, it gets activated without user input, following a windows update).

    I have a 2020 HP Pavilion laptop. Not particularly high end. Nothing I received when I purchased it gave any indication the drive was encrypted. I think it happened after an update (It seems highly unlikely I never tried to log into safe mode until now and if I had, I am certain I'd remember the notice alerting me the drive was encrypted).

    Fortunately my system isn't run by an enterprise so I was able to save the key to a pdf, as well as toggle it off, but it is taking quite some time for the shutdown process to complete.

    Anyhow, I am currently looking for some kind of config fix. so encryption never turns on again. I'd rather not worry about it following Windows updates and resets.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2023-09-08T11:12:56+00:00

    Dell BIOS turns bitlocker on auto, its a Dell thing recomended by Microsoft to do. , to stop you have to disable or turn off TPM in bios,

    pain, as windows 11 major updates will think system is not compatable , i find myself turning on and off, if you turn off bitlocker , i find in dual boot senerio it keeps turning back on ,after booting to other os, .also windows HOME does not have bitlocker but it does have device encryption , so its doing the same thing .

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments