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Rick BarwigFlag for United States of America

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BitLocker Recovery, do not know account that was used

An end user has a Dell laptop that she spilled coffee on.  Sent to to Dell who replaced the motherboard, keyboard, and hard drive.  Before the accident the system was running  fine and as far as I know, BitLocker was NOT enabled.  Dell stated that they replaced the hard drive as the new motherboard did not recognize the old drive.  I can attach the drive to another system and BIOS see the drive, but it is not accessible as BitLocker shows it locked.  

I reinstalled the old drive back into the laptop and upon boot, I get the BitLocker recovery screen which states to go to https://go.micrsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=xxxxxx from another  computer.  It also provide a Recovery Key ID.  When I go to that URL, I am prompted to login with my MS account, which I do.  There is no other navigation for the recovery key.

I do not know what account was used for the registration of BitLocker so I do not know what account should be used for the recovery key.  The previous MSP is out of business so calling them is not an option, the end user... well, let's just say she is not versed in this area and does not know anything.

I am following this article:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12415/windows-10-recovery-options  and get to step 9, but do not see an option for reset this PC.

What I am looking for is a way to reset the BitLocker and unlock the drive so I do not have to reinstall all the apps and recover her data.

Is this even possible?
Is there a way to determine what account was used for BitLocker
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McKnife
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There is no way to determine the account, sorry. You will need to guess which MIcrosoft account was used or else find the print-out of the recovery key. No other way.
of course the hard drive can be formatted for reinstallation without issues.
As the data is not recoverable from the drive I have a few questions:
  • Do you happen to have recent backup?
  • Is their any critical data on the drive that must be recovered?
 If data backup is available, restore to the new drive.  If not, you could keep the drive safe in the (unlikely) event you recover the account info.

In any event get yourself a good backup solution for your data and use it RELIGIOUSLY!  Better still configure multiple automatic backups. One on premesis and a second in the cloud.
I do not know what account was used for the registration of BitLocker so I do not know what account should be used for the recovery key
the end user... well, let's just say she is not versed in this area and does not know anything.
Well, I would assume the end-user enabled it so if you cannot this from her, you are stuffed.

Do not give end-users admin rights
Definitely do not give end users elevated rights.  
If you encrypt makes sure you have a well documented process on how you do this along with secure archiving of recovery keys!
If you give end users elevated rights, then make sure you have mechanisms to back up data and retrieve it.  You should just force bitlocker and load the keys into AD, and save the printouts too.  Everyone should have encryption on their computers, but you should be in control of it if you're the company admin in the domain.
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Rick Barwig
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The main takeaway should be that you back up the data and back up the bitlocker key.  Don't let users enable bitlocker on their own without having them give you the key as a backup.