Seeking Microsoft Bitlocker Key

[KT3Music]

Hi,
I am new to the HP Community resource. 

My wife and mother-in-law own HP ENVY notebook computers and both are presenting the Bitlocker recovery screen.  I had no idea these root drives were encrypted. 

Before retiring a couple years ago, I worked as a Desktop Computer Engineer in the federal governemt and Microsoft Bitlocker was part of client computer configuration.  I realized that private networks secure Microsoft Bitlocker Recover keys within its on-site (or cloud) Active Directory and an employee's personally owned computer does not touch the private enterprise network.  My wife and mother-in-law both worked for the same federal agency and access the agency's network via Citrix.  In other words, their computers were never "directly connected" to the government' private enterprise network. 

About two months ago (after an operation system or device driver patch, the Microsoft Bitlocker recover screen appeared.

The screen directed us a Microsoft web site where you would logon using an account (email) that was presumably used when the computer was initially setup.  We checked every username / email we own and there are no Bitlocker Recovery keys stored for these computers.  My wife has a surface Pro and a recently purchaed Lenovo and both of those recovery keys where recorded at the Microsoft site.

Researching on the Internet for answers, I found a reference on the MIcrosoft website that states in some instances,  Bitlocker Recovery keys are stored under the private organizations O365 specific Active Directory portal (see the following excerpt)

"If your device was ever signed in to an organization using a work or school email account, your recovery key may be stored in that organization's Azure AD account associated with your device. You may be able to access it directly or you may need to contact a system administrator to access your recovery key.
(In this scenario login to the Azure portal using your work email and not your personal account.)"

Since both my wife and mother-in-law worked for the same government agency at that time, we reached out to its technical support team.  Initially, the response was - there is no way our agency would store Bitlocker Recovery keys for a personally owned no agency computer.  However, when I explained (and referenced) the aforementioned information regarding the MIcrosoft O365 Active Directory portal, the tech seemed to understand and committed to check, but later replied there were no Microsoft Bitlocker Recovery keys stored for our HP ENVY computers.

Now, with that background, I am wondering if HP stored the Bitlocker Recovery keys somewhere when our HP ENVY notebooks were initally setup / built - perhaps something associcated with the TPM.  I saw a few references / posts in this community that loosely suggested that HP has a solution for this, but the information cannot be shared on an open community forum for obvious security reasons.

Since both of these computers are out of warranty (as they were purchase in the summer of 2020 during Covid), the support model available from HP is out-of-warranty technical support. 

My question...Does anyone know if HP did activate Microsoft Bitlocker Recovery on its HP ENVY notebooks and either a) has the recovery keys or b) provides a solution to access the Microsoft Bitlocker encrypted drive?  I did not want to purchase the out-of-warranty technical support only to discover that it only offers basic support such as how to configure computer  software program or setup a printer.  I am willing to spend the money for the out-of-warranty support, but I a,m trying to get a sense as to whether or not this option will product any fruit.

Thank you so my in advance for any assistance or information you can provide.  I really appreciate it.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

HP does not store any BitLocker recovery keys for their PC's.

HP will not be able to help you recover a BitLocker key.

If the BitLocker key is not available, you will have to clean install Windows on the drive.

All data on the drive will not be recoverable.

You can make a plain W10 installation flash drive with the media creation tool from the link below.

Make the 64-bit installation media.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

Boot from the installation media and when you get to the part of the installation that asks, 'Where do you want to install Windows,' run the diskpart utility to clean the disk.

1. Press Shift+F10 from inside Windows Setup screen to open a command prompt window.
2. Type diskpart and press the Enter key.
3. Type list disk to find your disk number.
4. Type select disk (e.g., select disk0) to choose the disk you want to format.
5. Finally, type clean to wipe the disk completely.
6. Exit diskpart and install Windows.

You can then install the drivers and available software from the notebook's support page.

HP ENVY x360 Laptop - 15-ds1063cl Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Support

After you do that, if you want the factory HP image you can use the HP cloud recovery tool to make a bootable USB recovery drive to factory reset the notebook's drive to its 'out of the box' condition.

Here is an info link for how to use the utility.  You will need a 32 GB USB flash drive for this.

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Support

You can download the tool from the Microsoft store.

HP Cloud Recovery Tool - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store