this post was submitted on 04 May 2025

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Microsoft secured my files! (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

224 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Back in January Microsoft encrypted all my hard drives without saying anything. I was playing around with a dual boot yesterday and somehow aggravated Secureboot. So my C: panicked and required a 40 character key to unlock.

Your key is backed up to the Microsoft account associated with your install. Which is considerate to the hackers. (and saved me from a re-install) But if you've got an unactivated copy, local account, or don't know your M$ account credentials, your boned.

Control Panel > System Security > Bitlocker Encryption.

BTW, I was aware that M$ was doing this and even made fun of the effected users. Karma.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 days ago

Windows is the virus.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Bit late to this thread but I know a few commands that might help if you're stuck:

manage-bde -off C: (or any other drive) This decrypts the volume and turns off bitlocker

manage-bde -lock/unlock

manage-bde -protectors -get C: (or any other drive) This displays your 48-digit key. I suggest you store it somewhere, just to be safe.

Get-BitlockerVolume reveals which of your partitions are encrypted with Bitlocker.

Disclaimer: I am not a terminal nerd, I just had similar problems years ago and went down the rabbit hole, used these commands and turned off bitlocker permanently. I don't use windows anymore, but when I did, it didn't cause any problems with bitlocker after this. If you're concerned about your un-encrypted hard drives, consider using Veracrypt (carefully!) or similar open source encryption software.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 days ago

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Fuck Microsoft.

I remember back in highschool a buddy encrypted his harddrive, didn't backup his key. He Lost ALOT when I upgraded his comp

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

But how is that relevant to your 'Fuck Microsoft' if he knowingly encrypted his device, which is how you make it sound?

I've enabled FDE on one of my Linux devices, I've already had to mount the filesystem in a rescue environment once because a failed update caused the system to be unable to boot. I would also have been hosed if I had lost the encryption key. Ok not really, because that's what backups are for, but you hopefully get the point.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 days ago

This happened to me once and I had to redo my coursework over the weekend...now I use Fedora :D

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I just installed Manjaro on my daily driver over the weekend. My entire steam library just works. My dev tools all work(better) on Linux, and free office is nice and familiar. Fuck widows.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

Give them time to mourn first, but then fuck widows :D

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 days ago

I've actually had this occur before to a machine I specifically disabled the tpm on so that it wouldn't happen (it was an account less frozen kiosk). I was fuming the entire time I spent rebuilding it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I just leave secure boot/bitlocker off when it comes to my home system. It wasnt something I "needed" when I was dual booting windows 10 and it's not something I'm gonna enable now that I'm using 11.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It’s not ”leaving bitlocker off”, though. It’s ”be aware about it and turn bitlocker off manually” since it’s enabled by default in the latest updates.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

This has been happening to people randomly for years. Ysed to get calls about it all the time, and that was pre-covid

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Always have backups! Doesnt matter what OS you use, stuff will break eventually.

I prefer bootable full system images to my NAS for easy restores, and online file backups, both running daily.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (6 children)

I can't even adjust bitlocker settings on my laptop's windows 11 home Installation...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Yeah, you need Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education edition.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Not anymore. Now home has it too

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

Regarding your last sentence, something similar happened to me with OneDrive. I mocked people thinking surely they enabled something by mistake. Nope. The defaults and general behavior are just that wacky. Glad I'm off Microsoft now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I mean you can write your Bitlocker key down and store it safely or put it somewhere else safe.. Lol

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago

The main problem here is Bitlocker is being turned on by default on fresh 24H2 installs, most people that don't know how to bypass the online account requirement are making burner Microsoft accounts (Boomers), therefore do not know the credentials in 3-4 years when their computer needs a repair.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

I've been preaching about this for a while. Many modern systems are getting bitlocker turned on by default.

If your system gets messed up, or simply won't start because of some security vendors bad update, goodbye data. You need the recovery key, and if you don't have it, you'll never see your bits the the correct order again.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (5 children)

I got into coding in the last few days. I have a project. Bumping into this while I'm trying to learn this shit? Fuck me. You know, we could just stop using money

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

I can't connect what you are saying into a coherent thread

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (7 children)

I still don't understand why there is no other mainstream os in competition alongside MS except IOs, I wouldn't call Linux mainstream of course, don't you think that's a bit weird?!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Microsoft is almost good as dead. These days, Linux takes just as much maintenance as XP used to. They've got maybe 5 years left until laptops start shipping with alternatives to Windows. My bet is it's going to be SteamOS.