How to Recover Data from Encrypted Hard Drive?

Theo Lucia

Nov 16, 2024 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

Almost every version of Windows OS provides a reliable and inbuilt mechanism to keep your data safe. By taking the assistance of its native tool, BitLocker, you can easily encrypt your drive. This is a highly secure and simple way to protect your private content. Though, if you don’t have the encryption key or are finding it hard to recover data from an encrypted hard drive, then you need to take some added steps. In this informative post, we will teach you how to recover data from an encrypted hard drive easily.

Part 1: How to Decrypt the Encrypted Hard Drive

As of now, Windows supports full disk encryption by following Cipher Block Chaining and AES encryption. If you already have the 128/256 bit key, then you can easily access the encrypted hard drive. Though, if you have lost the key, then you can also decrypt your drive. Before we proceed and teach you how to recover data from encrypted hard drives, you need to log in to your system as an administrator. Both of these techniques will only work if you are accessing your computer as an administrator.

Solution 1: Decrypt the Drive via Control Panel

This is the easiest way to recover data from an encrypted hard drive. Simply log in to your system’s administrator account and visits its Control Panel > System and Security. From here, you can select the option of "BitLocker Drive Encryption". This will let you view the encrypted drive with all the other options associated with it.

Now, you can simply select the drive you wish to decrypt and click on the "Turn Off BitLocker" option. This will generate the following pop-up. Confirm your choice by clicking on the "Decrypt Drive" button and wait for a while as Windows would recover data from the encrypted hard drive.

Solution 2: Decrypt the Drive With Certificate Manager

This is another simple method to recover data from an encrypted hard drive. Windows has an inbuilt tool that can be used to import the EFS File Encryption Keys to the location of your choice. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Firstly, go to the Start Menu and search for "certmgr.msc". You can also open it from the Run Prompt.

2. This will launch the Certificate Manager on your system. From the left panel, you can view different categories of certificates. Select the "Personal" tab.
3. Right-click it and go to the All Tasks > Import button. You can also go to the "Action" tab on the menu and select All Task > Import.

4. This will launch a new window of Certificate Import Wizard. Simply provide the on-screen instructions and bypass the authorization process to import the encryption keys to the location of your choice.

Solution 3. Decrypt Windows Hard Drive Using Diskpart

1. Type in diskpart in the search box and press Enter.
2. Type in the command: list disk, take note of the number of the encrypted hard drive.
3. Type the following command one by one, and press Enter each time:
   
   select disk X(X refers to the number of the encrypted hard drive)
   clean
   create partition primary
   select partition X
   active
   format fs=ntfs quick/override
   exit

Now you have decrypted the hard drive successfully, and we can continue with the next part to recover data from the encrypted hard drive.

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Part 4: How to Recover Data from Encrypted Hard Drive

If you are not able to recover data from an encrypted hard drive using the above-mentioned techniques, then you need not worry – we have another solution for you. By taking the assistance of Wondershare Recoverit data recovery software, you can easily retrieve your lost, deleted, locked, or inaccessible content. It has an easy-to-use interface that follows an intuitive process. The tool is 100% reliable and won’t cause any harm to your system as well. It is one of the oldest data recovery tools, which is already used by millions of people the world over.

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Step 1. Free download and install Recoverit Data Recovery on your computer, launch it and follow the next simple steps to recover data from the encrypted hard drive.

Step 2. Make sure your hard drive connected to the computer and detected. Click on the "Start" button to start the scanning process.

Step 3. To recover data from an encrypted hard drive, you need to select the hard drive after it has been decrypted.

Step 4. It will start a quick scan to search files from the encrypted hard drive, or you can go to a deep scan with "Deep Scan" which will search more files from the hard drive but it will take more time than a quick scan.

Step 5. After the deep scan, you can preview the recovered files and click the "Recover" button to save the files on your computer.

Now when you know how to recover data from an encrypted hard drive, you can easily access your lost or locked content. Recoverit Data Recovery is certainly a remarkable tool that will help you save the day time and time again. Go ahead and give this tool a try. If your friends or family also face any trouble recovering data from encrypted hard drive, feel free to share this guide with them as well to help them.

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