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How to Recover Data from Corrupted/Failed BitLocker Drive?

Updated on Wednesday, January 3, 2024

iBoysoft author Henrique Vieira

Written by

Henrique Vieira

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How to Recover A Corrupted/Failed BitLocker Drive?

Summary: This post tells how to recover data from a corrupted or failed BitLocker drive with professional BitLocker recovery software. Besides, it mentions how to format the corrupted BitLocker drive after recovering all wanted files.

how to recover a corrupted BitLocker-encrypted drive

I corrupted a BitLocker encrypted external hard disk when encrypting it due to power off. The encryption was almost halfway done. Now the BitLocker encrypted drive is not accessible on My Computer and disk management shows it as an unknown partition. The data is extremely important, so I don't want to resolve it by formatting the drive. Is there a way to recover the corrupted BitLocker drive?

"Drive is not accessible, the parameter is incorrect" means the file system has been corrupted. In this situation, if you format this corrupted BitLocker drive, you will lose the data. If you don't format this corrupted BitLocker drive, you cannot access this BitLocker drive anymore. How to recover the corrupted or failed BitLocker drive without data loss? Please read on.

Table of Contents:

How to recover data from a corrupted/failed BitLocker drive?

Understand BitLocker data recovery

Unlike common data recovery, BitLocker data recovery requires the intact BitLocker metadata and password or 48-digit BitLocker recovery key to decrypt data from BitLocker encrypted drive. While common data recovery software doesn't have this function. It is why you need to find a professional BitLocker data recovery software to recover data from BitLocker encrypted drive.

BitLocker data recovery software free download

iBoysoft BitLocker Recovery is a professional BitLocker recovery software that can recover data from a formatted, inaccessible, failed, corrupted, damaged, deleted, or lost BitLocker-encrypted partition.

Tutorial to recover files from a damaged/failed BitLocker drive

Step 1: First download and install iBoysoft BitLocker Recovery software on your Windows computer.

Step 2: Launch iBoysoft BitLocker Recovery, select the corrupted or failed BitLocker drive, and click Next to scan.

professional BitLocker data recovery software

If it is an external drive, you need to first connect it to your computer before running iBoysoft BitLocker Recovery. If the damaged BitLocker drive has bad sectors (hardware issue), please do a sector-level disk clone first and then try iBoysoft BitLocker Recovery.

Step 3: Enter the password or 48-digit BitLocker recovery key and click Ok to decrypt data from the BitLocker-encrypted drive.

decrypt data from BitLocker encrypted drive

Step 4: Scan the data from the BitLocker-encrypted drive.

Scan data from BitLocker encrypted drive

Step 5: After your lost files are found, right-click one photo, document, video, or audio and select Preview.

Recover data from BitLocker encrypted drive

If the selected photo, document, video, or audio cannot be previewed/played, check "Revert decryption" option under the Help menu and preview again. Otherwise, please contact [email protected].

Step 6: Purchase iBoysoft BitLocker Recovery license key at once.

Step 7: Enter the license key to activate iBoysoft BitLocker Recovery Trial version and continue the previous recovery.

Step 8: Select the found files and click Recover to start the data recovery job.

If some recovered files cannot be opened, check "Revert decryption" option under the Help menu and recover these files again.

Step 9: After data recovery is successfully done, you can reformat this corrupted or failed BitLocker drive and make it work again.

How to format a corrupted/failed BitLocker drive?

After data recovery is successfully done, it is time to format the BitLocker drive to fix it.:

  1. Right-click on the corrupted or failed BitLocker-encrypted drive in File Explorer or Disk Management.
  2. Select the "Format..." option from the right-click menu.
  3. Select the file system type and set other information.
  4. Click on the Start button. The format will be completed in several minutes.

Once the corrupted or failed BitLocker drive is formatted, you can use it again.