Bitlocker drive won't unlock with correct password, what to do?

Updated by Tim to Bitlocker Recovery Tips on April 1st, 2020

I have an external hard drive encrypted by Bitlocker, and works fine until I reinstalled the OS one day. I am petty sure the password is correct, but always give me error: The password you entered is incorrect. How should I unlock this Bitlocker encrypted external hard drive?

There are four solutions to solve 'Bitlocker drive won't unlock with correct password' problem.

Solution 1: Try recovery key

Bitlocker recovery key is another option to unlock Bitlocker drive. Follow below steps to unlock Bitlocker drive with recovery key:

Step 1: Open My Computer (or This PC) on the desktop.

Step 2: Double-click on the Bitlocker drive in Windows explorer.

Step 3: Click "More Options".

Unlock Bitlocker drive

Step 4: Click "Enter recovery key".

Unlock Bitlocker drive

If you cannot find recovery key, refer to How/Where to find Bitlocker recovery key?

Step 5: According to the recovery key ID, enter the corresponding 48-digit recovery key and then click Unlock.

Enter recovery key to unlock Bitlocker drive

Solution 2: Try Bitlocker drive on another Windows computer

Sometimes, Bitlocker drive can be unlocked with correct password or Bitlocker recovery key on another computer. For example, if you encrypted drive with New Encryption Mode built-in Windows 10, the Bitlocker drive cannot be unlocked with correct password or Bitlocker recovery key on Windows 7/8 computer.

Solution 3: Try M3 Bitlocker Loader for Windows

Step 1: Download, install and launch M3 Bitlocker Loader for Windows on your computer.

Step 2: Click Unlock.

Step 3: Enter the password to unlock Bitlocker drive.

If your Bitlocker drive won't unlock with the above three methods, try solution 4 to recover data.

Solution 4: Bitlocker data recovery

Unlike common data recovery, Bitlocker data recovery requires intact Bitlocker metadata and password or Bitlocker recovery key to decrypt data from Bitlocker drive so that lost data can be recovered properly.

M3 Bitlocker Recovery is a professional Bitlocker data recovery software which can recover lost data from formatted, corrupted, failed, inaccessible, unknown, deleted or lost Bitlocker encrypted partition, recover lost data after Bitlocker failure, recover lost data after Bitlocker error, recover lost data after Bitlocker drive encryption failed, interrupted, froze, hung, recover lost data after Bitlocker drive decryption failed, interrupted, froze, hung as long as we provide the correct password or 48d-digit recovery key.

Steps to recover data from corrupted Bitlocker drive:

Step 1: Download, install and launch M3 Bitlocker Recovery on your computer.

Step 2: Select the corrupted Bitlocker drive and click Next to continue.

Bitlocker data recovery software - M3 Bitlocker Recovery

Step 3: Enter the password or 48-digit Bitlocker recovery key.

Decrypt data from corrupted Bitlocker drive

Tips: If M3 Bitlocker Recovery doesn't accept correct password or 48-digit Bitlocker recovery key, it means Bitlocker metadata has been completely erased so that there is no way to decrypt data.

Step 4: Scan the lost data from corrupted Bitlocker drive.

Recover lost data from corrupted Bitlocker drive

Step 5: After all your files are found, preview the documents, photos and play the videos, audios to see if your lost files are recoverable.

File preview of M3 Bitlocker Recovery

Step 6: Select the needed files and click "Recover" to start the recovery.

If the recovered files cannot be opened, check "Enable brute-force decryption" option and recover these files again.