Microsoft just released a service alert informing users that the October 2025 Windows security update might trigger BitLocker recovery for some Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2, as well as Windows 10 22H2 systems. According to BleepingComputer, this isn’t the first time that Windows has experienced this issue, with similar incidents in May of this year, as well as in 2024 and 2022.
“After installing Windows Updates released on or after October 14, 2025, some devices might encounter issues during restart or startup,” Microsoft said in its announcement. “Affected devices might boot into the BitLocker recovery screen, requiring users to enter the recovery key once. After the key is entered and the device restarts, it will boot normally without any further BitLocker prompts.”
This won’t be an issue if your device does not have BitLocker activated — however, Windows 11 24H2 and onwards (even the Home version) have the feature turned on by default if it’s a clean install on supported hardware and you logged in with a Microsoft account. This means you likely have BitLocker activated if you have a new laptop, especially as Microsoft is taking steps to make it impossible to log into your Windows 11 PC using a local account.
If you’re using a corporate device, your IT administrator can prevent the bug from affecting your device via a Known Issue Rollback group policy. But if you’re a consumer user, you’d better know your BitLocker password, or else you risk losing access to your files for good if it locks you out and you don’t know the correct credentials. Thankfully, you can easily check if BitLocker encryption is enabled or disabled on your device, and you can also retrieve your BitLocker key from your Microsoft account if it has already locked you out.
BitLocker is a nifty tool for protecting your data, as it won’t let anyone access your hard drive if your computer is stolen, even if they move it to another device. However, it can also be a pain for the average user, especially if they did not know that it’s automatically activated on their Windows 11 PC, and how to recover the key should it activate. This is especially true if the bug activates after a software update — after all, most users do not expect that their system would flag an update from Microsoft as a security threat.
Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
My advice: check now and just turn off Bitlocker if it's on. For businesses, government, etc., it's fine as IT can properly manage it. For 99% of consumers at home, it's just unnecessary and can and does result in some major heartbreak vis-a-vis permanent data loss.
Regardless of that, PLEASE have some kind of backup strategy. Oh and don't forget that RAID isn't a backup, it's redundancy -- two different things.
They should be required to notify users about automatic BitLocker encryption on first boot and provide the option to either backup the key somewhere or disable it.
someone needs to file a class action or soemthing as these "bugs" are more and mroe common and thansk to forced updates you dont get a say until its too late.
iirc yrs ago didnt some woman succeed in suing em as she lost a lot of data thanks to a forced update?
I don't have bitlocker activated and recently got 25H2 supposedly with the updates that fixed the dead mouse/keyboard when system repair. Not fixed yet. Make sure you got a bootable win USB which will allow you to use mouse and keyboard while repairing the boot drive.
I don't have bitlocker activated and recently got 25H2 supposedly with the updates that fixed the dead mouse/keyboard when system repair. Not fixed yet. Make sure you got a bootable win USB which will allow you to use mouse and keyboard while repairing the boot drive.
Microsoft made a hotfix for it after 25H2 cameout,
It's fixed with KB5070773 (A lot have problems installing it)
Yea so a good backup strategy should be implemented in everyone's computer life period.. MS should have no impact on that. I would argue if at this point in our technology history you don't have good backups and lose data for reasons such as a bad MS update like in this scenario that is more on you than them. Updates go bad sometimes it is the nature of the beast especially when MS has to make their OS compatible with literal thousands of different possible configurations.. things tend to go sideways sometimes. now does MS tend to do it more than they should for sure but point still stands
someone needs to file a class action or soemthing as these "bugs" are more and mroe common and thansk to forced updates you dont get a say until its too late.
iirc yrs ago didnt some woman succeed in suing em as she lost a lot of data thanks to a forced update?
MS does not force updates they just have them on by default, they are always optional, meaning you can easily go and turn them off at any time you choose. With that said not too sure that argument is going to hold water in an actual court my friend
It's scary being strongly coerced to an OS that has such problems.
MS should be embarrassed and/or scared, especially considering how long win11 has been out.
The age of an OS has no bearing on things going sideways during updates.. the only way you prevent this is to never update but in todays climate that isn't the best idea either so unfortunately things like this happen sometimes. make sure you have a good backup plan which everyone should have and its becomes a null point.. still frustrating sure but not the loss of data or end of the world
