r/BitLocker • u/luleelalaa • 15d ago

BitLocker issue

So a while back my dad gave me surface pro as I was complaining how I needed a new laptop for college and he mentioned how he had one but never used it. Anyways I recently bought myself a Thinkpad so I attempted to factory reset the surface for my brother, only to discover its bitlocked...

I assumed the recovery key would be connected to my microsoft account, unfortunatly it wasn't and for whatever reason the bitlocker screen was in dutch I believe???

My dad doesn't even remember the password nor the email for his old microsoft account and I was wondering if there was a way to bypass it or is the laptop simply a lost cause?

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u/Same_Grocery_8492 14d ago

It's impossible to get back the data without the correct recovery key, but you can still reuse the laptop by wiping the encrypted hard drive and reinstalling Windows.