BitLocker recovery key

[ahmmetwally]

I bought the HP Spectre x360-15-df0001nx laptop early this year. The machine has Windows home on it and it was working fine. Windows never asked me to save any BitLocker recovery key. However, I noticed that there is a lock icon on my partitioned drive D. 

This week, windows suddenly stopped while I was working with, and presented a blue screen error message asking me to restart. I did. Then Windows could not boot again after several automatic trials to solve the error. Finally, I had been left with one option which is refreshing or re-installing a recovery copy of windows. When I tried this option with keeping my files, Windows presented a blue screen asking for the recovery key as the hard drive has been encrypted by BitLocker. 

As I mentioned above, the system never asked/alerted me to save the recovery key, so I do not have it. I kept trying lots of things to access the C drive to install a fresh copy of windows but I was not able to access it. In the end, I found a way to delete the drive C via the command prompt using the 'diskpart' command and installed a fresh copy of Windows Home. Once the windows booted, I found that partition D, which has all my very important personal files, is encrypted and I can not access it; as it asks me to enter the BitLocker recovery key.

I tried all the tips that describe how and where to find the key, e.g. went to my Microsoft OneDrive account and all the suggested procedures and tricks as outlined on the Microsoft website in this regard. But unfortunately, none of them were of help, and I could not find my recovery key anywhere!

So, kindly, could you help me to solve this issue and get my recovery key? Or let me know how to recover my files.

Thank You!

[WAWood]

@ahmmetwally 

If you Google this, you will find LOTS of links telling you how to bypass BitLocker -- but they all have one thing in common, they presume you exported the key to a USB tick using the Bitlocker function and can use that stick to unlock the drive.

IF you did NOT do that, and I suspect that is the case, as far as I know, there is no way to bypass Bitlocker and get at the encrypted drive.  If there was, then there would be no point in even having BitLocker around!

[ahmmetwally]

@WAWood

Thank you for trying to help.

As I explained, Windows did not alert me to save the key, so how could i save it.

There are many complaints across the internet from similar behavior especially for those who recently bought laptops. Microsoft automated this process to be done without any action from the user side! They should then find a solution for us.

[WAWood]

@ahmmetwally 

You won't get an argument from me regarding MS -- but don't hold your breath. 

Back when Win10 was new and MS was tricking folks into upgrading their Win7 PCs to Win 10 -- and corrupting the PCs in the process -- ALL that MS did about that was cut back on the deceptive practices.  That still left folks with corrupted PCs.