BitLocker Puzzler: BL doesn't recognize my password or recovery key

[NickNJ]

A while ago I encrypted my external drive using BL, kept the id, pw and recovery key.

This week I was cleaning up all of my external flash drives and drives and all recovery codes worked like a charm. My external drive applied my key and initiated decryption and not only was it taking forever but it kept locking up my computer causing me to reboot and restart the process. Yesterday I managed to get almost 50% of the drive decrypted. But today when I attempted to sign in, bL doesn't recognize my password or recovery key.

I have tried a half dozen times but still doesn't work. Is it possible that a new key was created even though the ID has not changed? If so, how can I find it or recover my external drive to an earlier point? I know this sounds impossible but I can't understand the recovery key change. Did I mention that password also isn't being recognized?

Any help would be appreciated, since i have about 135GB of data at stake.....thanks

 

[hang-the-9]

Could be a failed hard drive. The fact that is was locking up the computer points to that pretty well. Encryption does not like drive errors.

 

[NickNJ]

Thanks for your reply. It does beg the question: is there anyway I can retrieve/copy the data so I can attempt to open it anew?

nicknj

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Unless you can unlock the drive there is nothing you can do to retrieve your data. The encryption is doing it's job here.

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks for your reply. It does beg the question: is there anyway I can retrieve/copy the data so I can attempt to open it anew?

nicknj

No, if the drive is damaged, non-encrypted drives would be OK to find files from in cases, if they are encrypted, there is no way for a recovery program to get them together properly. Unless the drive is decrypted, the recovery program just sees a mess of random data on the drive.