There's admittedly a low-probability that information is helpful, but I thought I'd include it in the off-case it was.ġ. It basically thinks the hard drive has been moved to another system, and prompts for the recovery key. If you're in the unlikely situation where you've swapped the hard drive to another device (another chassis for example), you may be able to swap it back and not have it prompt for a recovery key.Īdditionally, I've seen it prompt for Bitlocker recovery key when there have been what I would speculate as significant enough updates to where BitLocker recognizes the system has changed. I would just say BitLocker depends on device state so you don't have to enter in your Bitlocker Recovery Key every time. I'm also not going to point out any best practice advice of storing the key for future reference as that woul likely not be immediately helpful to you (though, if you chose to store the BitLocker Recovery key with your Microsoft account when setup, that might be helpful and the path of least resistence).

I'd just like to start off by saying the consensus so far in this thread is absolutely correct, and you're looking at reimaging your system.

Bitlocker key generator