📎 AI Summary:
The original poster, pinto, describes an issue where removing their Dell M4800 from the domain and changing its name caused the BitLocker recovery key to no longer work, preventing login despite being able to unlock the drive with a PIN. They are seeking solutions or clarification on whether the recovery key changes when leaving a domain and if data recovery options are available beyond reinstalling. Respondent livix07 suggests trying a potential solution (though the link is removed), noting that their own recovery key sometimes doesn't work across different Windows versions, implying that key management can be inconsistent. Overall, the thread highlights concerns about BitLocker recovery key stability after domain removal and system changes, with users seeking methods to regain access without reformatting.

pinto

New Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2018
Messages
1
Thread Author #1
Hi,
I have a Dell M4800 on which I have Bitlocker enabled with TPM on the system disk. Everything worked fine, I could unlock the encrypted drive with the pin code I had set and log in with administrator privileges to my domain account. I decided for some time ago to remove the computer from the domain and at the same time change the computer name. After that I can still unlock the encrypted drive with the pin code but I cannot login since I don't have a local account to login with. So I thought to solve this issue by booting in safe mode and unlock the drive with the recovery key but I found that the key I had recorded did not work. My impression is that it has changed, presumably when I removed the computer from the domain. So for now, I cannot unlock the system drive in order to create an account to login with. I have tried to restore from a system restore point but found that it was not an option.

Is it possible that the recovery key changes when the computer leaves the domain?

Do I have any option left besides reinstalling and wiping the system disk? As I said it is possible to unlock the drive with the PIN but the recovery key I have is not working.

/Pinto