Skip to main content

Disk restore because of lost Bitlocker keys

Thread needs solution

My laptop had to have a new motherboard fitted, and on attempting to boot up we discovered that Bitlocker was enabled on the HDD, but I have no idea where the key is.  While I try to solve that puzzle, I am looking at the option of rebuilding the system and restoring from one of my Acronis whole disk backups.  Having not done this before, I am keen to get it right!

Equally unfortunately I have lost the USB drive on which I created boot media, so I shall have to create boot media for the dead machine from my spare laptop.  This already had ATI on it, and I have just upgraded it to ATI 2021.

The machine is a Dell XPS-15 running Windows 10 x64.  My backup sets are stored on a NAS drive on the local network.  I would be grateful for guidance on the steps to be followed in my particular situation, both for creating the boot media and then for restoring the entire disk from backup. 

 

0 Users found this helpful

Iain, if you created your Acronis whole disk backups using the Windows ATI application, then these will not be encrypted with BitLocker as this was unlocked when at the Windows desktop.

For rescue media, you could try downloading a copy of the rescue media ISO image file from your Acronis Account provided you have registered your ATI serial in the account.  This is Linux based media and can be used to burn a DVD disc or else used with a tool such as Rufus to create a bootable USB stick.

The alternative is to create rescue media on your other laptop, where you can create the 'Simple' WinPE version of the rescue media.  You will need to test either type of media will boot correctly on your Dell XPS and can recognise the internal disk drive to allow recovery to it.

Notes: If the disk drive is encrypted by BitLocker then you will need to use the Tools > Add new disk option to prepare the drive and remove all encryption.  This will offer you a choice of preparing the drive using UEFI / GPT or else using Legacy / MBR partition scheme.  This needs to match the BIOS boot mode used by the OS, so check in the BIOS settings - this will show 'Windows Boot Manager' if UEFI / GPT is used, else will show the make/model of the disk drive for Legacy / MBR systems.  (I would expect it to be UEFI).

Next, you should use a wired network connection for accessing your backup files on the NAS as this will be more easily configured than trying to get wireless working, plus will give a faster connection for transferring data.

When making the connection to the NAS, you will probably need to use the format \\192.168.0.29\ in the address bar of ATI when going into the Recovery options, so you will need to know the IP address of your NAS for this, along with the credentials for the same.

See KB 65508: Acronis True Image 2021: how to create bootable media and KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

KB 65539: Acronis True Image 2021: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

KB 57992: Acronis True Image: NAS Is Not Detected

OK, I got the WinPE environment booted from a USB stick and am presented with the Acronis recovery app.  However when I try to browse to the NAS device, if I get presented with a credentials challenge and input the user and password, this always gets rejected.  I suspect there's something going wrong with the handshake between the PC and the NAS.  So I thought maybe I could go another way and access Acronis Cloud from within the app, although I have no backups stored there.  In order for this to be a viable option I would need to transfer a backup set into the Cloud, from my NAS - is there any way to do that?  The options within ATI don't seem to support so simple a move.

Iain, there is no method provided to allow transferring your NAS backup to the Acronis Cloud. 

I did some testing with one of my own systems after my previous reply to this topic and captured some screen shots for the same.

My first check when booted from the WinPE media was to confirm I had a network connection to my own NAS.

Next, I took the option to create a new Backup on the NAS which then gave me the prompt to enter my credentials.  (The credentials are retained while in the WinPE environment and were used for a Recovery that I performed later).

The new backup ran successfully to the NAS, and later I was able to perform a successful recovery.

Many thanks for your time on this.  Despite following your example, I found that, when it got to testing the credentials for connection to the NAS, I got rejected every time.  Also, the WinPE environment seemed quite flaky:  kept going to sleep and I had to reboot when that happened.  So eventually I opted for rebuilding from a Dell recovery USB, installed ATI and then restored from a whole disk image backup, so my laptop is now totally recognisable again, and this time hasn't got BitLocker enabled!   

This has been a learning experience...

Iain, thanks for the update and good to read that you have got a working laptop back again.  All of these situations tend to be learning experiences for all of us too!