Back in January Microsoft encrypted all my hard drives without saying anything. I was playing around with a dual boot yesterday and somehow aggravated Secureboot. So my C: panicked and required a 40 character key to unlock.
Your key is backed up to the Microsoft account associated with your install. Which is considerate to the hackers. (and saved me from a re-install) But if you’ve got an unactivated copy, local account, or don’t know your M$ account credentials, your boned.
Control Panel > System Security > Bitlocker Encryption.
BTW, I was aware that M$ was doing this and even made fun of the effected users. Karma.
Do home versions even come with bitlocker? There might be nothing to adjust
They do and it auto activates when you add a Microsoft account. It cannot be turned off on the home edition as it doesn’t have the full bitlocker settings. Came across this one on some machine i was working on a while ago and i ended up having to pull the SSD from the customers machine and plug it into something with pro to actually disable bitlocker.