Bitlocker Decryption Interrupted and External HDD partitions showing problems

Question

_{Tuesday, May 7, 2019 11:04 AM}

I was carrying out Bitlocker Decryption process and it got interrupted due to power failure, and since then the 3 partitions of the disk are stuck at different percentages of decryption. The files and folders in these partitions are partially showing up in windows explorer but any further attempt to copy or view more files inside the folders are making the system hung. 

The manage-bde -off [partition] commands too didn't help. How to get back the data from the partitions and decrypt the drives completely? 

All replies (3)

_{Wednesday, May 8, 2019 3:22 AM}

Hi,

Try to use Repair-bde to repair the BitLocker-protected drive.

This tool can be used to access encrypted data on a severely damaged hard disk if the drive was encrypted by using BitLocker Drive Encryption. Repair-bde can reconstruct critical parts of the drive and salvage recoverable data as long as a valid recovery password or recovery key is used to decrypt the data.

Please refer to the following article to solve this issue:

Using the BitLocker Repair Tool to Recover a Drive

You might won't be able to get to the data due to the failed decryption. I hope you had a backup of the data on the drive.

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_{Wednesday, May 8, 2019 10:15 AM}

@Farena

That is not applicable here. See the limitations mentioned at /en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/repair-bde

• Repair-bde cannot repair a drive that failed during the encryption or decryption process.
• Repair-bde assumes that if the drive has any encryption, then the drive has been fully encrypted.

@Samik_C: Please resort to your backup.

_{Monday, May 13, 2019 7:12 AM}

Hi Samik_C,

Any update? Please let us know if you need more help.

@Ronald Schilf 

Thank you for pointing that out.

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