bitlocker recovery

[effiecgu]

A dell laptop, containing a 128gb ssd + 1tb sata drives, was encrypted with bitlocker (probably not intentionally).
the ssd drive (OS), got corrupted, and they would like to be able to recover the data from the sata drive.
I tried swapping out the ssd drive with a new one, and installing a fresh copy of windows.
the new os sees the encrypted drive, and asks me for the decryption code.
Owner did sign in with a Microsoft account, but doesn't remember exactly which one. They gave 3 accounts, one of which contained 2 encrypted computer codes, but not the one I'm getting from the encrypted HD.

Is there ANY way of getting to that decryption code?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Nope

 

[Sky-Knight]

Mathematically impossible, working as designed.

You can get the code out of one of those MS accounts, or pave the unit at the loss of all data.

 

[effiecgu]

Mathematically impossible, working as designed.

You can get the code out of one of those MS accounts, or pave the unit at the loss of all data.

Wasn't looking for a way to crack it, but to see whether there was any technical/ formal method I was missing.
So does that mean that computer was actually using another MS account, which the owner just doesn't remember?

 

[phaZed]

Wasn't looking for a way to crack it, but to see whether there was any technical/ formal method I was missing.
So does that mean that computer was actually using another MS account, which the owner just doesn't remember?

It could be a local or MS account. With a MS account they may be able to retrieve the keys. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026181/windows-10-find-my-bitlocker-recovery-key

 

[nlinecomputers]

Wasn't looking for a way to crack it, but to see whether there was any technical/ formal method I was missing.
So does that mean that computer was actually using another MS account, which the owner just doesn't remember?

That or he saved it to a flash drive or just printed the key out.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yeah, there are many paths...

To make matters worse I'm aware of two cases recently where the bitlocker key stored in the MS account didn't actually match the unit in question. Both cases MS support qualified as a bug, but they failed to report in which platform.

So dig through the accounts sure, try them... but I'd be installing a new drive and starting over to get the unit online in the meantime. The odds of getting the data back aren't good.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Now is the time to plus sell backups. Encryption helps protect the end-user should it be stolen but if there is ANY kind of hardware fault the data can be lost. Just like it can be if the hard drive develops a bad sector, hit by a virus, spilled cup of coffee and so on.