How to Bypass BitLocker Recovery Key in Windows 11 (2 Ways)

How do I Bypass BitLocker in Windows 11?

A BitLocker recovery key is very important when you need to unlock a BitLocker-protected drive. It is automatically generated during the process of encrypting a specific drive using BitLocker encryption technology. This key can be stored in various places, including your Microsoft account, a USB flash drive, a TXT file, or a paper file.

Many people don't know how to unlock BitLocker without password and recovery key. Sometimes, the BitLocker recovery screen persists even after you've entered the correct recovery key multiple times. You can read this article to know how to bypass BitLocker in Windows 11.

How to Bypass BitLocker Recovery Key in Windows 11

Next, this article will introduce you to two methods l to tell you how to bypass the BitLocker recovery key in Windows 11. Each method includes a detailed graphic tutorial. The first method is solved by finding the BitLocker recovery key. Another way to do this is by enabling or disabling Secure Boot. You can learn from it according to your own needs.

Method 1. Find the BitLocker Recovery Key

The first solution is to find the BitLocker recovery key. You can try to recover the BitLocker recovery key. When creating a BitLocker encrypted drive, you can save the recovery key in your Microsoft account, USB flash drive, paper document, and TXT file. So do your best to find keys from these places.

After you try this method and you still can't find the BitLocker recovery key, you can continue to try the second solution below.

Method 2. Enable or Disable the Secure Boot

If the first method didn't help you resolve the issue, you can try enabling or disabling Secure Boot. Some users reported that they managed to bypass BitLocker recovery by enabling or disabling the Secure Boot option. The following are the specific operation steps.

Step 1. On the initial BitLocker recovery screen, don’t enter the recovery key instead, press Esc for more recovery options and select Skip this drive at the right bottom of the corner.

Step 2. Select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings > Restart.

Step 3. Your computer should be restarted to UEFI, go to the Security category.

Step 3. Set the Secure Boot to Enabled or Disabled and press F10 to save the change.

Note:

This procedure may vary from different motherboards. If you can’t find the secure boot option, search for the manual tutorial according to the manufacturer of your motherboard.

Bonus Tip: How to Clone BitLocker Encrypted Drive

 If you need to clone a BitLocker encrypted drive, a cloning software called AOMEI Backupper Professional can help you achieve your goal. As a professional cloning software, whether it is cloning from a small disk to a large disk or from a large disk to a small disk, it can meet your cloning needs. And allows you to clone any encrypted drive.

• Intelligent clone: Normally, we will use intelligent sector cloning. This function will only clone used sectors of the source disk. So you can  clone a larger HDD to a smaller SSD if you need.
• Sector by sector clone: To copy an encrypted BitLocker partition, we need the sector by sector clone function. This feature requires the destination drive to be at least as large as the source disk.
• Compatible with multiple different systems: This software supports multiple Windows PC operating systems, including Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vistad, etc.

Download and install AOMEI Backupper Professional on your computer. If you are a Windows Server user, you can pick AOMEI Backupper Server.

Step 1. Open AOMEI Backupper Professional, install and open it. Click Clone > Disk Clone.

Note:

Professional edition supports cloning both data disks and systems disks from MBR to MBR/MBR to GPT, or GPT to  GPT/GPT to MBR. If you only want to clone data disks, you can pick the complete free Standard edition.

Step 2. Select the BitLocker Encrypted drive as the Source disk.

Step 3.  Select a different disk as the Destination Disk.

Step 4. Confirm your operations and click Start Clone.

Notes:

• Edit Partitions: You can change the partition size when your target disk is larger than the source disk. 
• SSD Alignment: If your target disk is an SSD, you can tick SSD Alignment option to accelerate the SSD's reading and writing speed.

Summary

This article describes how to use two different methods to help you achieve your goal of how to bypass BitLocker recovery keys in Windows 11. You can help out by locating the BitLocker recovery key or by enabling or disabling Secure Boot.

In addition, this article also presents an additional bonus tip. If you need to clone a BitLocker encrypted drive. The professional disk cloning software AOMEI Backupper Professional can help you achieve your goals easily and efficiently. You can download this software to explore more.