Remember, always print your recovery code to pdf and save it to the same drive. This way, when it happens, you're forced to only use Linux.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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I had this happen to me with a hardware-encrypted bitlocker drive. I was forced to buy a new SSD, actually.
You couldn't reformat?
When using Opal (hardware encryption), it locks down the drive. Not even a secure erase would wipe/release the damn thing.
So this process didn't work? https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000037389/memory-and-storage/data-center-ssds.html
It would have if I actually had the PSID 🥲
It was an expensive lesson to take photos of my new drives and store the PSID and serial numbers in KeePass.
I thought Windows wouldn't let you save it to the same drive? Its been a while, granted. But i had to plug in a USB or print it out.
It is clever enough to not let you save the key to the same drive that’s encrypted. If you print to PDF the print dialogue box doesn’t care where you save the PDF.
Ahh, never knew that!
So malware wasn't enough, Windows wants to be a ransomware too?
Edit: I can already see it now. "Locked out of your files? For a small fee or our premium subscription, you can restore encrypted files that we lost."
I Always save the bitlocker info on a usb drive, in case of... I had to type the 40 or so digits a couple of time!
My wife asked me to help her with her Windows laptop one day. She was stuck at the bitlocker prompt and of course didn't remember enabling it or being given a password. I was like, WTF, they're just randomly turning this on by surprise now? LOL
Luckily she was able to eventually get it unlocked by calling MS support.
I like the "encryption, but we have the keys" approach. Makes it very secure, especially since MS never had any security breach or leak, ever.
It's obviously mainly supposed to protect against basic thieves in this configuration.
Some some needs to do a "what if Microsoft bought Signal" parody
by calling MS support.
Which hopefully wasn't a 1-800 number flashing obnoxiously on the screen. 😂
The bit locker key is saved to the Microsoft account of the user who set up the computer. I was messing with Linux on my new laptop and learned the hard way when it refused to boot back into Windows.
My favorite was finding out that bit locker was enabled on a forced update. The key was saved to the Microsoft account that was used to set up the lappy. Except, I didn't use a Microsoft account because I'm not some tech marionette lemming who needs Gates hand shoved up my ass to tell me how to use my fucking computer. So I used a local account and disabled bitlocker via bios.
Nothing was lost, but it was still a pain in the dick hole.
If you can access the bios just factory reset it.
I have a feeling this is such an overcomplicated setup