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SofiaMelnikova-4170 avatar image
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SofiaMelnikova-4170 asked BembaPassions-2447 published

HDD is locked by Bitlocker on the laptop with windows 7

My external HDD is locked by Bitlocker on the laptop with Windows 7. The error message is: "Error recovering disk : A recovery key was not found on this drive. The drive can not be unlocked." I have never used Bitlocker to lock my HDD. I have got neither key nor password. On the other laptop with Windows 10 the external HDD works well without any error. Could you please help me with this problem? What should I do to open my external HDD on the laptop with Windows 7?

windows-7
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SofiaMelnikova-4170 avatar image
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SofiaMelnikova-4170 answered BembaPassions-2447 published

Thank you very much for your answer.
I can recover data from my HDD disk by opening it on the laptop with windows 10. The external HDD disk works properly on the new laptop with windows 10 and I can work with all the data it contain. The problem occurs only on my old laptop with windows 7. So the same HDD disk works well on one laptop and is locked by BitLocker on the other one.

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It means that this external disk has been encrypted on Windows 10 computer.
Insert this external disk into your new Windows 10 PC, go to Control Panel to check BitLocker state, decrypt this disk, then you could use it normally in Windows 7 laptop

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Thank you very much! Now it works.

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i think this works perfectly well

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TeemoTang-MSFT avatar image
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TeemoTang-MSFT answered

First, BitLocker won't allow us to put the "recovery key" on the drive being encrypted. This is a built in safety feature to prevent you from installing the key on the encrypted since you can't access said drive without it.
Secondly, BitLocker will not automatic encrypt drive unless we use Microsoft account login, you know, Windows 7 doesn’t support Microsoft account login. You need to recall who ever touched your laptop.
Finally, if you've lost the BitLocker recovery key or password, the only way to access the drive is wiping it. If the data in this external disk is very important, you need to take a chance on data recovery company.


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