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I'm dealing with a frustrating problem for a friend. His Windows 10 PC was running slowly and he read online that he could solve it by switching to "Diagnostic startup" in msconfig. After that he rebooted and found out his password wasn't accepted anymore. We tried on-screen-keyboard and verified that his password was correct, but no success.

I read online that this is a common issue that could be fixed by booting into save mode or other options in the "Advanced startup options" menu.

However, this is where the trouble starts, it turns out his PC is encrypted with Bitlocker and of course he doesn't know the recovery key, and he doesn't have any memory of enabling Bitlocker. Also he doesn't use a MS account to login, so no luck of finding the recovery key there. So we are unable to boot using save mode.

In short the situation:

  • Admin user password is known
  • That password is not accepted since "Diagnostic startup" in msconfig was enabled
  • C drive encrypted by Bitlocker
  • Unable to boot in save mode because Bitlocker recovery key is unkown

I feel like it might be possible to set the PC to "Normal startup" in msconfig using the cmd in the "Advanced boot options" menu, however, that cmd is mounted at the 'X' drive since the 'C' drive is of course encrypted, so I'm unable to find all system programs there.

A system reinstall is not an option because of the files on the drive. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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  • That password is not accepted since "Diagnostic startup" in msconfig was enabled This is your best step forward. Figure out what's wrong with the username or password so you can get logged back in. Enabling this mode doesn't result in good passwords being rejected.
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 13:57
  • Steve Martin had a comedy bit called “How to be a millionaire and not pay taxes”.  It went “Step 1: Get a million dollars. Step 2: Don’t pay taxes.”  (And there was a bit more.)  The fact that the ‘‘known good’’ password is not working is part of the question, so telling the OP to “figure out what’s wrong”, without giving any hints or avenues to investigate, doesn’t seem to be very helpful.  If you’re just saying that they should do more research before posting a question, then say that.
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 18:26
  • Thanks for your replies, yes I did indeed start with researching why the password was not accepted, but the fixes I found for that needed the drive recovery key. Fortunately we did find that key eventually, see my own answer.
    – Jack Jhonsen
    Commented Jun 11, 2019 at 8:32

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Turned out the guy did have some random MS account that contained the recovery key. Through that we were able to decrypt the drive and then reinstall windows while keeping the files.

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