I used BitLocker yesterday to crypt my external HDD 1 TB. I was working fine and before I went to bed it was on 42%. When I wake up I saw error message and i try to access my drive. I try to recover it under command prompt with: D:\Windows\system32>repair-bde h: -NoOutputVolume -rp "301378-406516-090310-5002 80-714890-156200-170764-310783" -Force -lf d:\eg\log.txt BitLocker Drive Encryption: Repair Tool version 6.1.7077 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. Beginning scan for BitLocker metadata. Scanning boot sectors for pointer to metadata: 100% Finished scanning for BitLocker metadata. ERROR: An error occurred while repairing 'h:'. Please see the log for details, or type an output volume or image to decrypt contents. and the result from the log file is: LOG INFO: 0x00000027 Valid metadata at offset 3392929792 found at scan level 1. LOG INFO: 0x00000028 Successfully created repair context. LOG ERROR: 0xc000003b Failed to fix the boot sector because metadata is not aligned to a cluster boundary. Do You have any idea how to fix it?

It's pretty likely that you have had a drive hardware failure.Rating posts helps other users Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP

Run Spinrite on the drive, and do a level 4 analysis; it could take about a day. That should rule out hardware failure or not. If the drive is locked, it is by design that nothing can access it without destroying the data. That is precisely the purpose of locking the drive in the first place. This type of software should NEVER be used casually. It was designed for mission critical and highly sensitive data protection, not to stop people looking at your pics or the music you downloaded from Limewire. If you actually need this level of protection, you would know what you are doing. If the data is critical, there are companies that can, with time, extract your data for you. But you will likely pay $1500 or more to recover that data. Remember Bitlocker is not a perfect technology as yet, so you should test it thougoughly on unimportant data before you even consider using it for day to day use in your organization. Also keep in mind, that any drive you protect with it, is essentially a nice paperweight if any one of a long list of possibilities occurs to your computer system such as malware, virus infiltration, power failure, premature shutdown, etc etc. I strongly suggest you test any and all drive locking software or hardware THOUROUGHLY before you put it into daily production. Remember what it is designed to do: LOCK the data permanently in case of PHYSICAL LOSS or THEFT. So, if you actually have the drive in your hand, and any social engineer knows that 90% of the trouble is getting that far, your data is secure. I strongly suggest this feature used mainly for laptops that contain mission critical corporate data or research or financial information. For anyone else, please, it may sound cool, but just pass it by. You are highly likely to lose all the data you so highly value when, not if, that drive starts to fail in the future. Some tips for that level of security are: - Secure only exactly what you need secured, nothing more. - Keep an unencrypted backup of the data locked away in a safety deposit box, or a vault. - Never let anyone access or touch the hardware apart from the primary user. The wisest people in life know just as well what not to do and what they do not need, as what they do.Computer software consultant for 27 years

I have the same problem. Can you share any additional info about what happened?

I'm not sure I understand the syntax of your question. "Unlocking" a bitlocked drive does not remove the encryption. Another term for unlock would be 'mount' the drive, or 'make it visible' to the system. Removing the encryption to test for drive corruption would be an ok test of the problem, but running the command for chkdsk 'as admin' should function without error on a working drive.(encrypted or not)Rating posts helps other users Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP

Hello everybody, I too have the same problem. I've tried to lock the WD 1.5 TB drive with bitlocker, it failed at 0.7% and I cannot access the drive anymore. I get it as locked, but when I try to unlock it, either with the full recovery password, either with the set recovery password, the system just hangs. How can I get my data back? I get the same error as above when using the bitlocker recovery tool. Thank you for your time.

Hi, I am also having a same problem with my 500GB Seagate Harddisk. and encrypted partion is 250GB D: drive. I am unable to access it. It's unlocking but I am unable to access the file system. system is prompting me to format it. I tried repair-bde but it giving me the same above error :( ========================================= BitLocker Drive Encryption: Repair Tool version 6.1.7600 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. Beginning scan for BitLocker metadata. Scanning boot sectors for pointer to metadata: 100% Finished scanning for BitLocker metadata. LOG INFO: 0x00000027 Valid metadata at offset 3228565504 found at scan level 1. LOG INFO: 0x00000028 Successfully created repair context. LOG ERROR: 0xc000003b Failed to fix the boot sector because metadata is not aligned to a cluster boundary. ERROR: An error occurred while repairing 'D:'. Please see the log for details, or type an output volume or image to decrypt contents. ====================================== Any one has solution of this ?? Thanx in Advance.

I have the same problem.

> ERROR: An error occurred while repairing 'D:'. Please see the log for details, >or type an output volume or image to decrypt contents. >Any one has solution of this ?? Borrow or buy an HDD equal or bigger than the drive you are trying to recover, and use OutputVolumeOrImage suffix to restore your data on external disk. good luck. Behrooz Hariri

I was receiving the exact same error. Oddly the only posts I could find were from 2009 up through 2011. I am doing the recovery again this time directing to a local NAS to host the 2 TB of data needed. *fingers crossed* Thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious Behrooz. I will try to remember to update here once complete with success or failure.Grimlakin

I was facing the same problem mentioned by odor4o as a first email in the mail thread. Regards Ramesh