Windows 10: Laptop inaccessible due to BitLocker after complete battery drain

Hi everybody,



I’m encountering a serious problem with BitLocker.



Yesterday my laptop Lenovo Ideapad, Windows 10 ran completely out of battery. Without a warning of “low battery” or a controlled shutdown it suddenly went black. After plugging in the charger and rebooting, I’m now facing the BitLocker recovery screen.



The thing is: I’ve never activated/enabled BitLocker on this computer in the first place. As you can see on the attached screenshot of my Microsoft account I logged in on a second device, BitLocker is disabled. And I checked: there aren’t any keys stored in my account.




Moreover, there aren’t any keys on a USB stick or elsewhere as well. Since I’ve never activated BitLocker, I’ve never received a key to save or note on a piece of paper.



Apparently, the drained battery caused the system to initiate some kind of security routine and activate BitLocker. That’s my understanding of an encryption system I’ve never cared about so far. Now I’m left with an inaccessible device.



Is there anything I can do? Contact Microsoft or contact Lenovo as a manufacturer? It puzzles me that a system is capable of locking me out without my fault or action.



Unfortunately, it’s not an option for me to clear the laptop and re-install Windows, since there is vital data on it.



Many thanks for your help.



Best

Nati

:)

 

laptop power drain


I replaced my HDD with an SSD (and placed the HDD on the optical drive bay) a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that even if I shut my laptop down, I still would have a drained battery the next time I power it on. If I do not connect my laptop to a power source for a day (still shut down of course), the battery would be fully drained. I shrugged it off as a battery problem but recently I brought my laptop to travel somewhere and once opened my laptop bag, it was warm. It was only then I noticed that even though I shut the laptop down, a little led is still on indicating something has not completely powered down.

My bet is that it is the HDD on the optical drive still sucking power but is there a way to know what is completely draining my battery?

 

BitLocker questions

According to the link below, BitLocker will go into Recovery mode when the battery is swapped out or fully drains out.

This leads to my next question. does it also ask for the Recovery Key when a laptop battery fully drains itself down?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ery-guide-plan
Removing, inserting, or completely depleting the charge on a smart battery on a portable computer.

 

Battery drains while on sleep mode.


Sleep Mode has never been efficient. In all my years of using laptops, I've always just turned them off and on. Battery drain is normal for sleep mode. Some people have had issues with the laptops not powering off completely and draining the battery, but if that's your issue, there is an easy fix. You turn off Fast Startup and check a setting in Device Management under Intel Management Engine.