BitLocker & encrypted-drive recovery · for the drive's owner · UK-wide, by post
A machine that suddenly demands a 48-digit BitLocker key after an update, a drive that failed while BitLocker was on, a forgotten password, a recovery key you cannot find: in the great majority of these the data is completely intact, because what has happened is that the drive will not release its key, not that anything has been lost. The whole job is usually finding the key, and it is normally in your Microsoft account or your organisation's directory. Where the drive has physically failed, we image it at the sector level and decrypt the image with your key, never the failing original. And where a key is genuinely lost on a modern AES-256 drive with nothing to fall back on, we will tell you honestly that it cannot be recovered, rather than take money for work that cannot succeed. Single-disk BitLocker decryption is £800 + VAT, with 50% taken on acceptance and not refunded and 50% on a no-fix-no-fee basis; the drive must be removed from the computer and sent in on its own. We recover BitLocker drives only for their owners, behind proof of ownership. The first look is free.
Put it to an engineer and hear what it would take
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What has happened?
Choose the closest match. You get an honest read of whether it is the easy kind or the hard kind, and the one thing not to do tonight.
Before anything else
Whatever sent your machine to the recovery screen, the first move is the same, and it is free: find your 48-digit recovery key, because it opens the drive in almost every case and makes even a failed drive recoverable. It was almost certainly escrowed somewhere when BitLocker was switched on. The most likely places, in order:
If this is a home laptop, the key is almost certainly in the Microsoft account you signed in with, because Windows Home turns on Device Encryption automatically and escrows the key there. Go to account.microsoft.com/devices/recoverykey, sign in, and read the 48 digits against the device. Try every account you or your household might have used.
Every place the key could be →If this is a work or school laptop, the key is almost certainly escrowed where your IT department can read it: Microsoft Entra ID, on-premises Active Directory, Intune or MBAM. Ask them first, matching the key ID shown on your recovery screen to the right record. A managed-machine lockout is usually solved this way in minutes.
How escrow retrieval works →The drive was healthy; only the key was needed. The owner had set the machine up with a personal Microsoft account and did not realise Device Encryption had escrowed the key there. We confirmed ownership, guided them to the account, and the machine started on the first try. No recovery work, no fee beyond the free look.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseThe case the recovery key is made for. The drive was dropping out. With ownership confirmed, we imaged the failing SSD in passes behind a write blocker, then decrypted the image with the printed key. The thesis and every source came back. The failure was the whole problem; the key made the encryption a non-issue.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseThere was no recovery key. With ownership confirmed, we built a mask and dictionary attack around what the owner remembered, a short phrase, a place name, a trailing year, and the attack found the password within two days on GPU hardware. Had the password been random, the answer would have been no.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseA failed-drive case with the key in hand, the good outcome. The controller was failing. With the firm's authority and the escrowed key, we read the NAND at the chip level, assembled a complete image of the encrypted volume, and decrypted it with the key. The file system had minor damage, repaired on the clone, and the project came back in full.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseThe two questions that decide a job
Everything about a BitLocker job turns on two questions, and neither is the make or the model. The first is whether you have, or can retrieve, the recovery key or password, because with it almost anything is recoverable and without it the odds depend entirely on what else is true. The second is whether the drive is physically healthy or has failed, which decides whether there is hardware recovery to do before the decryption. The honest combinations are worth knowing before you spend anything.
If you have the key or password, the job is routine whatever the drive has done. A healthy drive at the recovery screen just needs the key entered. A failed drive is imaged at the sector level behind a write blocker, weak areas last, a mechanically failed disk repaired and read on the bench, a dead SSD read at the chip level, and the image is decrypted with your key. Damaged metadata is rebuilt with repair-bde onto a clone. The original is never decrypted or written to.
If the key is genuinely lost, the odds depend on what else is true, and we are honest about all of it. A weak, human-chosen password can often be recovered by a dictionary or mask attack; a strong random one cannot. A machine still running, or a hibernation file, may hold the key in memory, which can sometimes be lifted; a powered-off drive with no capture cannot. And a modern AES-256 drive protected by TPM with no key, no weak password and no memory capture cannot be recovered by anyone, which we say plainly rather than take the work.
Tell us the make and model, what the recovery screen says, what happened just before it, and whether you have or can retrieve your recovery key. Back comes the posting address, the nearest of ten drop-off points, what proof of ownership we need, and a booking sheet to print. It is read by an engineer, not a script.
For most lockouts this is the whole job, and it is free: the key is usually in your Microsoft account or your organisation's directory, and entering it opens the drive. We will point you to the right place before you send anything. You only post a drive in if it has failed, or the key is genuinely lost and the data matters.
Take the drive out of the computer and send the drive on its own, not the whole machine, with the booking sheet and your proof of ownership. Or hand the sealed parcel in at a drop-off point. We check the proof of ownership before anything is read.
The drive is examined read-only: whether it is healthy behind a lost key, or failed behind a known key, is settled, and so is whether what you want is possible. You get a straight account of what can be done and one price, and on a lost-key drive that cannot be opened, you are told so with nothing to pay.
If you accept, 50% of the £800 + VAT is taken then and is not refunded, and the other 50% is on a no-fix-no-fee basis. The drive is imaged, the image decrypted with your key, any file-system damage repaired on the clone, and the files listed for you before the balance is due. They go home on fresh media; we never send the key and the data by the same route.
For most lockouts the data is intact and the key, which is probably in your account, is the whole answer, and that costs you nothing. If the drive has failed, or the key is genuinely lost and the data matters, tell us what happened and send proof it is yours, and the free look will tell you honestly what can be done and what it would cost. We would rather send you away with your key than take work that cannot succeed.