Windows 10: Use BitLocker Repair Tool to Recover Encrypted Drive in Windows

How to: Use BitLocker Repair Tool to Recover Encrypted Drive in Windows

How to Use BitLocker Repair Tool to Recover Encrypted Drive in Windows


Information When you sign in to Windows.

When you automatically unlock when connected.

When you automatically unlock.

You may experience a problem that damages an area of a hard disk on which BitLocker stores critical information, and can no longer unlock the fixed drive, or removable drive normally. This kind of problem may be caused by a hard disk failure or if Windows exits unexpectedly.

The BitLocker Repair Tool (Repair-bde) can be used to access encrypted data on a severely damaged hard disk if the drive was encrypted by using BitLocker. Repair-bde can reconstruct critical parts of the drive and salvage recoverable data as long as a valid BitLocker password, recovery key, or startup key (.BEK file) is used to decrypt the data.

To recover a damaged OS drive with the BitLocker Repair Tool, the OS drive will need to be connected to another PC if you are not multi-booting with another Windows on the same PC to run the BitLocker Repair Tool from.

*Warning You will need to have an empty output volume (drive) of equal or larger size than the damaged BitLocker encrypted drive. The contents of the output volume will be completely deleted and overwritten by the decrypted contents of the damaged BitLocker drive.

The following limitations exist for Repair-bde:

• The Repair-bde command-line tool cannot repair a drive that failed during the encryption or decryption process.
• The Repair-bde command-line tool assumes that if the drive has any encryption, then the drive has been fully encrypted.

This tutorial will show you how to use the BitLocker Repair Tool (repair-bde) to recover the contents of a damaged drive encrypted by BitLocker in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to use the BitLocker Repair Tool.


Note For Windows 7, BitLocker Drive Encryption is only available in the Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise editions.

For Windows 8/8.1, BitLocker Drive Encryption is only available in the Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 Enterprise editions.

For Windows 10, editions.

CONTENTS:

• Option One: Recover Damaged BitLocker Drive with BitLocker Repair Tool using Password
• Option Two: Recover Damaged BitLocker Drive with BitLocker Repair Tool using Recovery Key
• Option Three: Recover Damaged BitLocker OS Drive with BitLocker Repair Tool using Startup Key

EXAMPLE: Before and after using BitLocker Repair Tool











OPTION ONE [/i] Recover Damaged BitLocker Drive with BitLocker Repair Tool using Password
1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow repair-bde <source drive letter>: <output drive letter>: -pw -f



Note Substitute <source drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "H") of the damaged BitLocker drive you want to recover.

Substitute <output drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "E") of the empty drive you want to copy the contents of the BitLocker drive to. The output drive needs to be of equal or larger size than the damaged BitLocker encrypted drive. The contents of the output drive will be completely deleted and overwritten by the decrypted contents of the damaged BitLocker drive.

For example: repair-bde H: E: -pw -f

3. When prompted, enter the BitLocker password used to unlock this drive, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)



4. Run chkdsk on the output drive (ex: "E") if ACTION REQUIRED. (see screenshot above and below)



5. You can now close the elevated command prompt.





OPTION TWO [/i] Recover Damaged BitLocker Drive with BitLocker Repair Tool using Recovery Key
1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. Make note of the first section of numbers (ex: "1C689B42") for the Numerical Password ID. This is the key ID to help ID the recovery key for this drive. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow manage-bde -protectors -get <drive letter>:



Note Substitute <drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "H") of the BitLocker drive you want to recover.

For example: manage-bde -protectors -get H:



3. Go to where you step 2 above. (see screenshot below)



4. Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow repair-bde <source drive letter>: <output drive letter>: -rp <recovery key> -f



Note Substitute <source drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "H") of the damaged BitLocker drive you want to recover.

Substitute <output drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "E") of the empty drive you want to copy the contents of the BitLocker drive to. The output drive needs to be of equal or larger size than the damaged BitLocker encrypted drive. The contents of the output drive will be completely deleted and overwritten by the decrypted contents of the damaged BitLocker drive.

Substitute <recovery key> in the command above with the 48-digit recovery key from step 3 above for the BitLocker drive (ex: "H").

For example:
repair-bde H: E: -rp 659395-153670-001177-404635-666061-005951-081125-304997 -f



5. Run chkdsk on the output drive (ex: "E") if ACTION REQUIRED. (see screenshot above and below)



6. You can now close the elevated command prompt.





OPTION THREE [/i] Recover Damaged BitLocker OS Drive with BitLocker Repair Tool using Startup Key
1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. Make note of the External Key File Name. This is the name of the BitLocker startup key file for this OS drive. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow manage-bde -protectors -get <drive letter>:



Note Substitute <drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "C") of the BitLocker OS drive you want to recover.

For example: manage-bde -protectors -get C:



3. Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow repair-bde <source OS drive letter>: <output drive letter>: -rk "<Full path of startup key .BEK file>" -f



Note Substitute <source OS drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "C") of the damaged BitLocker OS drive you want to recover.

Substitute <output drive letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "E") of the empty drive you want to copy the contents of the BitLocker drive to. The output drive needs to be of equal or larger size than the damaged BitLocker encrypted drive. The contents of the output drive will be completely deleted and overwritten by the decrypted contents of the damaged BitLocker drive.

Substitute <Full path of startup key .BEK file> in the command above with the actual full path of where the startup key .BEK file from saved at for the BitLocker OS drive (ex: "C").

For example:
repair-bde C: E: -rk "G:\CFB586D0-6A39-422E-B232-1BE2EDDFA0D6.BEK" -f



4. Run chkdsk on the output drive (ex: "E") if ACTION REQUIRED. (see screenshot above and below)



5. You can now close the elevated command prompt.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Turn On or Off BitLocker for Fixed Data Drives in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off BitLocker for Removable Data Drives in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off BitLocker for Operating System Drive in Windows 10
• How to Unlock a Fixed or Removable BitLocker Drive in Windows
• How to Unlock an OS Drive Encrypted by BitLocker in Windows 10
• How to Backup BitLocker Recovery Key for Drive in Windows 10
• How to Find BitLocker Recovery Key in Windows 10
• How to Copy Startup Key of OS Drive Encrypted by BitLocker in Windows
• How to Create BitLocker Encrypted Container File with a VHD or VHDX File in Windows

:)

 

Accidently Deleted Bitlocker Encrypted Drive

The link above goes to a news web site not the M3 site.

However on the M3 site note the following caveat

"If you formatted Bitlocker drive using format tool built-in Windows Vista/7/8/8.1/10, there is no way to recover data from formatted Bitlocker encrypted drive, because Bitlocker metadata has been erased after formatting under Windows Vista/7/8/8.1/10.

If you formatted Bitlocker drive using other OS or other method, please download and try M3 Bitlocker Recovery to recover data from formatted Bitlocker encrypted drive as long as Bitlocker metadata is intact."

 

Can't unlock Bitlocker Encrypted Drive

I have a Bitlocker encrypted external HDD without any OS installed in it. I plugged it to pc with usb then i unlocked my drive on Win10 with my password as usual then i was copying the data from my unlocked
Bitlocker encrypted drive to another non-encrypted drive. Then power cut suddenly. After that i can't access my Bitlocker encrypted drive anymore.

-When i try to unlock that drive from Windows Explorer pop-up says "Encryption on this drive is not compatible with your Windows. Try to unlock it with newer version of Windows." without password and recoverypassword/recoverykey
input options. But my Win10 is fully updated (1703)

-Tried Win7 popup came without asking any password "Failed to unlock the drive. No protector keys found in this drive."

-I also tried manage-bde -bitlockerdrive -protectors -get the output is "ERROR: No key protectors found". But drive seems like encrypted already.

-I tried repair-bde with 48 digits recovery password for recovering data to another HDD. Recovery done without any errors. Then did "chkdsk
outputdrive: /f" it says "File system is NTFS. The first NTFS boot sector is unreadable or corrupt. Reading second NTFS boot sector instead. Unable to determine volume version and state. CHKDSK aborted." The disk shown as RAW and i can't access it.

-After that i also tried thirdparty recovery tools for recovering data on the drive that created after repair-bde (decrypted RAW one). I recovered all my files without any corruption. But all of them shown
as RAW files and had randomized names without folder structure. Somehow repair-bde can't transfer folder structure. I tried thirdparty recovery tools on unaccessable Bitlocker encrypted drive. It listed all my files with correct file names and folders. So
folder structure on encrypted drive is not corrupted i think but i can't recover them because they are encrypted and i can't open any file. I need folder structure, my files are too dispersed. What is the solution ? Thanks.

 

Hello micoam, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

What is the drive letter of your BitLocker drive?

You would need to substitute "H" at the end in the command with your drive letter instead.

 

yes i did, the letter of drive on my system is H

 

In that case, it may mean that your "H" drive is not available. This is most likely from whatever cause the critical damage.

You may have to format the "H" drive to be able to use it again. *Sad

Do you have backups?

 

No i dont have a backup of those file, that is why i have reading different post to get it fix but no solution yet,
please what can you do for me?

 

Do you have the recovery key or startup key for the drive?

If you do and know which one it is for the drive, you can try continuing with the steps using the key.

 

i have a txt file saved during the encryption, the recovery key inside the file was what i used first before trying the third option,

please see the file save then, help me EXPLAIN IN DETAIL HOW I CAN USE THAT FILE TO GET MY DATA BACK with other option that can help out because i have use different bitlock tools that help but doesn't work for it. easus and 3M

 

What happens when you try Option 2 with the recovery key in your screenshot above?

 

sorry i just check the difference between option one and two

option one gave a feedback of password error not correct

option two scanned completely but not successful during des-encrypting and was saying critical damage occur during des-encryption. is there still any solution to it.

 

I'm sorry to say that it appears the data on the drive has been lost caused by whatever did the critical damage. *Sad

Was the decrypting process interrupted (ex: power loss)?

 

if i am running the option two or one and my system battery is low can't i hibernate and continue when its on plug in. because those process take approximate 21hour when i tried it last.

 

kindly go through this, and tell me if there is any other way i can recover my files.
thanks

 

Decrypting cannot be interrupted. If it is, it can cause the situation you're in now. It would be best to make sure it is plugged up, and let it finish if it's able to.

If you get the same error message again, then it means the data is toast. *Sad