Save to a file is only possible on another drive or USB drive.

Save to your Microsoft Account (for personal devices).

Good to know that you can’t store the recovery key on the encrypted drive itself. When you enabled Bitlocker on your computer you were given a couple of options to store the recovery key. Then it’s important to first disable or suspend Bitlocker, make the changes, and then re-enable Bitlocker and store this time the key in a safe place.

Once everything is restored as before, you will probably be able to boot your computer. So if you just have changed hardware components and can’t find the recovery key, then the easiest step to solve this, is to revert the hardware change. But if you install a new video card and add RAM at the same time, then you might need to enter the recovery key. Adding an additional RAM module won’t trigger the Bitlocker Recovery screen. You can change one hardware component at a time. The most important one to note from this list is the hardware change. Changes in the Windows Kernel files (updating / reinstalling Windows).

The following changes can trigger the Bitlocker Recovery screen: When everything is ok, then it will give the recovery key to Windows, so your computer can start up.īut if it detects a change, then it will ask for the Bitlocker Recovery Key to protect your data. When you start your computer, the TPM chip does a couple of measurements to check the computer hasn’t been tampered with. To encrypt and decrypt the data, a key is used that is stored inside the TPM chip. To do this, Bitlocker uses the TPM chip that is built-in into your computer. This way, if somebody gains physical access to your device, they will be unable to read the data from your computer even if they place the hard drive into another computer. This may even result in solving the problem without the need for the recovery key.īitlocker is used to encrypt the data on your hard drive. How does Bitlocker work?īefore we look at the places where we can find the recovery key, it’s good to know how Bitlocker works. But most importantly, we will take a look at the different places where we can find the Bitlocker Recovery Key. In this article, I will first explain briefly how Bitlocker works.

Lansweeper bitlocker