BitLocker encryption in Windows 8 uses very strong AES cipher for encrypting the contents of the drive. It is not possible to access the contents of BitLocker protected drive without the password. If you have forgotten the password to your BitLocker encrypted drive, then you can still use the recovery key to unlock the drive and reset its password. By resetting the password, you assign a new password for future use and erase the older password. Here is how you can reset the BitLocker password for a drive using the recovery key :
- First of all, unlock the protected drive using the recovery key by following the instructions in this post : How to Unlock BitLocker Protected Disk Without Password.
- Once your protected drive is unlocked, right-click on the target disk drive in Windows Explorer and select Change BitLocker password.
- You would be shown a dialog to change the password. Click on Reset a forgotten password link.
- In the window that opens up, enter your new password two times. The password must be between 8 to 256 characters long and can contain numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters, spaces and symbols. After entering the password, click on the Finish button to save the new password.
- If you have entered the passwords correctly, then you would be shown a message that the password has been changed successfully. Now you can use this new password to unlock the drive anytime you want.