Windows 10: Bitlocker: lost access to secondary drive after formatting primary drive.

Short explanation:
I have a Dell notebook with two storage drives, one M.2 with Windows 10 Home installed, and a secondary drive for backup. After formatting the primary drive and reinstalling Windows in it, my secondary drive started asking for a Bitlocker key. I already tried looking in https://onedrive.live.com/recoverykey, I have several keys in there, but none of them work to unlock that drive. It doesn't give me the option to unlock using a password, just a key. Just to clarity, the Bitlocker I have is not that one that asks for password when you boot the computer, it ask the password when I try to open the drive in Windows Explorer.

I really need to unlock that drive, since I moved all my files in there before formatting the M.2 drive, I have work and college files in there and I am really really fucked if I lost that! And yes, I know how dumb I am for not having a backup.

Long explanation:
It's a Dell G5 notebook, it was purchased with one M.2 and a HDD. Later, I replaced the HDD with a Samsung Evo SSD. Windows 10 Home (the original that came in the notebook) was always in the M.2 drive, and I haven't touched the Windows installation when I replaced the HDD with a SSD.

I remember enabling Bitlocker on this drive, I don't remember the exact steps I took to enable it, but I'm almost sure I set a password, and I'm not sure about the recovery key. Since I purchased the notebook, Windows was always logged in with the same Microsoft Account.

I tried using a Bitlocker recovery software, and it gave me some interesting informations:
3:36:26 PM Volume: C Type: 3 Status: BitLocker
3:36:26 PM Volume: D Type: 3 Status: BitLocker
3:36:30 PM Trying to open volume: D:\
3:36:30 PM Disk: 1, Sector Size: 512, Offset: 0x0000000001000000
3:36:30 PM Type: 6, Offset: 0x0000000006b00000
3:36:30 PM Volume GUID: {93B4E2AA-30FB-4D6E-A048-5F5467C34A3E}
3:36:30 PM Encryption: 0x8004, Timestamp: 11/12/2020 3:08:19 PM
3:36:30 PM Label (PC, Name, Date): DESKTOP-DN1N5VB Secondary 12/11/2020
3:36:30 PM + Recovery Key, GUID: {0886EC2F-9241-4D72-A456-F5113B8D0ACB}, Timestamp: 11/12/2020 3:08:21 PM
3:36:30 PM + Startup Key, GUID: {0921107C-6B39-4272-B0CA-8F44A8E248E7}, Timestamp: 11/12/2020 3:08:24 PM
3:36:30 PM This Volume is NOT password protected (cannot be unlocked with a password).
3:36:30 PM Recovery, Startup and TPM keys are 128+ bit random values and cannot be brute-forced.

Yeah so, 11/12/2020 matches the date I installed the SSD in the notebook.

Thanks everyone for your attention.

submitted by /u/tehlegend1937
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:)

 

Prompt For Bitlocker Recovery Key For Secondary Internal HDD After Reboot

Have rebooted my laptop (Dell G7) and drive D: (secondary) was not accessible until the Bitlocker Recovery Key was entered.

It appears to be treating this drive as external with a Drive Type of "SDV" and not internal. As in the manage this device section the secondary drive is not listed and only the primary drive C: is listed.

How do make this drive internal?

 

Why primary mSata hard drive also BitLocker

Can someone explain why on a laptop if the secondary hard drive is using bitlocker it would also bitlock the primary mSata hard drive, that makes no sense to me,

I assumed only one hard drive would be affected if i lost my recovery key.

 

Why primary mSata hard drive also BitLocker

Thanks for the reply, I probably didn't explain it properly, I had two hard drives in a laptop, the mSata was the primary hard drive, with the boot, and the sshd hard drive was used for storage, that drive was the one with bitlocker on it, when the drive failed or went into bitlocker mode with the lost recovery key, it seemed unusual that the primary mSATA drive would not boot normally, even removing the secondary hard drive still presented me with the recovery key screen.

So, that's what I find odd, why would a secondary hard drive affect a primary hard drive that isn't bitlocked, I assumed they would be separate or does bitlocker encrypt at a kernel level as well. They were two separate volumes, C: for the mSATA and volume D: for the drive that was encrypted.

I was just curious about the cross-over, thanks.