Windows 10: Bitlocker is no longer accepting the password

My Win-10 laptop was booting up slowly and I did something stupid - I powered it down. There wasn't an update during the night before and I didn't notice one upon boot, though I got distracted for maybe 15 seconds.


Upon the reboot, Bitlocker recognized my password but the machine was so slow that I could not log into Win-10. Wondering if I had messed up a UEFI update, I updated the UEFI/BIOS. After that, Bitlocker would not recognize my drive password. It also will not accept the 48-digit "Recovery Key" for the OS drive or separate data drive.


I have tried:

1. running system diagnostics - even the extended tests - within the UEFI/BIOS, and they all pass
2. using Win-10 recovery to get a command prompt. I am unable to unlock the drive using manage-bde with the 48-digit "Recovery Key."
3. using "manage-bde -status c:" and it is locked with key protectors of "Numerical Password" and "External Key"
4. using "manage-bde -protectors -disable C:" but the volume is still locked
5. entering into factory reset with the recovery partition to re-load a fresh version of Win-10. But I cannot delete or format the drive since it is locked. So the software will not allow me to re-write a fresh Windows-10 OS over it.
6. running "bootrec /fixboot" in case I corrupted the boot files, but received an "Access is denied" message

What can I do? Thankfully, my data is backed up. My next step is to perform a "Factory Reset." If that doesn't work - would replacing the internal OS hard drive work - or is the problem elsewhere?


Thanks for you time,


EEngineer41

:)

 

Bitlocker passwords don't work with certain symbols but accepted

Has anyone else come across this problem? I used the symbols '/' and '#' within a Bitlocker password to allow the user to avoid using the shift key. These symbols were accepted as a password change. At the next login the password was refused as it was 'incorrect'.
I had to use the Recovery key to get in and change the password again. Bitlocker says you can use symbols and doesn't list exceptions; this sounds like a nice Bitlocker 'bug'?

[Moved from: Windows / Windows 10 / Power on or off a device]

 

Bitlocker will not accept password or Recovery Key

I am trying to access my hard drive , But my recovery key and password are not being accepted

by bitlocker.

This Recovery key was sent to me when setting up the bitlocker, But now says it's a invalid key



Is there a problem with this software as its not accepting my recovery key Or password.



Can this bitlocker be reset so that it Can accept my recover key.



Any help please.Alan

 

Getting bitlocker to accept my valid passwords

I guess I end up solving my own question since no responses were forthcoming from this forum:

ISSUE CLARIFIED:
To clarify the issue, the problem is Bitlocker not correctly recognizing and validating a password phrase at the PRE-BOOT phase of the encryption process.

This means the user entered a correct eight alpha numeric char minimum in the simplest case (no mixture of upper/lower or special chars complexity), that was accepted as an OK password during the setup part of the encryption process but once windows is restarted for the first time to initiate the encryption process, it does not recognize the previously accepted password to start the encryption process.

This happens even though the entered password is EACTLY the SAME one Bitlocker was OK with when the user previously set it up INSIDE windows.

This anomaly seems to affect the BitLocker app ONLY if the pass word validation is attempted from OUTSIDE of windows AKA during the PRE-BOOT phase part of the process.

If the user entered windows successfully and from there attempted to activate an encrypted drive, a correctly entered password phrase would be accepted and validated by BitLocker REGARDLESS of the keyboard utilized.

PROBLEM PINPOINTED/DISCOVERED:

The problem was that there is an incompatibility between the Bit Locker app and many wireless mini keyboards that do NOT have an F12 key. These keyboards do NOT seem to have a problem with any other windows 10 app that use keyboard entries or with any other whole drive encryption programs during the password validation process (tried the password validation part successfully with four other encryption programs)

THE RESOLUTION:

Many of these wireless mini keyboards that don’t have an F12 key, necessitate the activation of a specific key such as F7 or the num-lock key BEFORE the password phrase entry is accepted and successfully validated by BitLocker. ONLY then, would Bit Locker detect and validate the correct passwords.

ALTERNATE SOLUTIONS:
a. The use of a standard size wireless or wired keyboard OR the use of a wireless mini keyboard that HAS an F12 key if the encryption program to be used is Bitlocker .
b. The use of a different encryption program

Hopefully this can help some other poor soul that runs into this very insidious problem yet virtually no one out there knows how to resolve.