Windows 10: Bitlocker Lost External Hard Drive

I plugged my external hard drive into my computer. I asked me if I wanted to encrypt the hard drive and I said yes. It gave me an error saying that it could not encrypt it because it had boot up files on it. Now the external drive cannot be recognized on any computer I plug it in to. It shows up under device manager and says that it is unallocated. How do I fix this?!?!

:)

 

Remove BitLocker for external drive

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



We understand that you want to disable BitLocker for the external hard drive. However, we would like to know if you are able to access data from the external hard drive.



In the meantime, you may refer the steps mentioned below to disable BitLocker:

1. Type Command Prompt in the search bar on the
   Taskbar.
   
2. Right click on the Command Prompt icon and select
   Run as administrator.
   
3. Type manage-bde –off X: and hit
   Enter. (Replace X with the drive letter of the external hard drive)
   

Meanwhile, you may also post your query in
TechNet forums, where we have support professionals who are well equipped with the knowledge on BitLocker to address your query.



Regards,

Nikhar Khare

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

Lost access to external hard drive because of Bitlocker

Any PC that I plug my external hard drive in, asks me to enter a password to Bitlocker. The problem is that I have never installed a password for Bitlocker and I don’t have recovery keys in my Microsoft Account. In the result I am unable to access
my hard drive

 

External Hard Drive

Hi John,

We suggest that you try the troubleshooting steps below:

• Open your External Hard Drive file in File Explorer.
• Type the name of the file you want to search on the search box and click Enter.

The file will show up in Search Results and you will be able to move it to the correct folder.

Let us know if you need further help.