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Bit Locked Drive -recovery

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:28 am
by robin77
I was running windows 7 ultimate, and bitlocked my "D" drive, I have the password and the key saved separately, upon some ribbon fault on the laptop monitor display, took to a technician and the technician formatted my drive and installed windows 7 home premium, so now I have two operating systems the old one and then the new one. The tech said I have all my files on the old, but when I checked this thing is no more and my drive is not Bitlocked anymore and the bit-lock icon is missing and none of my files are there . Tried several software's but when it was time that it prompted for a bitlock password and I did put the password which I have, but it says error . Password invalid.. or sometimes it just stops the operation after hours of scanning. Can anybody expert in this provide a solution? I really need help , because of all the years of hard work is stored in that drive.
Appreciate anyone giving me a hand in this, and Thank you for reading this.

Re: Bit Locked Drive -recovery

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:46 pm
by lcoughey
This is not a good scenario...and a very huge reason why it is important to have backups. I certainly hope that your technician understands the mistake he has made and has offered to cover any costs needed to recover the data and/or compensate you for the lost data.

The first thing you should do is get a full sector-by-sector clone of the drive to make sure that you don't make things worse. Then work with the copy connected as a slave to your data recovery system.

The only downloadable software that I'm aware of that is designed to work with bitlocker data recovery in such cases is M3 Bitlocker Recovery.

As already stated, this is not a good scenario with high odds of being recoverable. You may want to consider sending the drive out to a professional lab in your area to see what they can do to help.

Re: Bit Locked Drive -recovery

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:28 pm
by robin77
Thank you Luke for replying, the M3 Bitlick Recovery tool didnt give any solution, as it goes on for hours then asks for a password then when I insert it, it says wrong key, (although its correct) , so here I am , helpless. If you think of anything else please do let me know. TIA

Re: Bit Locked Drive -recovery

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 3:20 pm
by lcoughey
It is possible that the re-installation of Windows changed they key sector on the drive for a new key, essentially making your data unrecoverable. Basically, the security of encryption is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.