Troubleshooting BitLocker: damaged volume

It may happen. You are using a BitLocker-encrypted USB memory stick to create quick backups of your regular work and one day when you try to open it in Windows Explorer, though you are able to see the drive icon with a superimposed padlock and key, it cannot be opened and instead it gives you the option to format it. What happened? Basically, data is corrupted and therefore not accessible. The solution lies in a command-line utility called repair-bde, which is the repair tool for BitLocker Drive Encryption. First of all you must have the BitLocker Encryption Recovery Key of the drive. If you don't, this solution and any other solution will not work for you, and you will have to resort to format the drive and lose all your data. Second, you need an extra USB memory stick with the same size (or may be bigger) than the one you are having trouble with. Now, lets assume your troubled USB corresponds to drive I: and H: is your blank new USB. You are going to transfer all the data from input I: to output H: and the end result, if successful, will be an identical original I: drive copied into H: but your I: will have to be formatted, at any rate, to use it again. The command you have to enter, as an Administrator, is as follows, depending obviously on your settings:

repair-bde I: H: -rp [your BitLocker Encryption Recovery Key]

The -rp switch stands for -RecoveryPassword and your recovery key consists of 48 digits (8 groups of 6 digits each, separated by dashes). The process, for a 8GB USB stick will take about an hour but you will recover your data. Warning: All information in the output drive (H:) will always be overwritten. Finally, after the tool has reached "Decrypting: 100% complete", it is very important that, before you view the decrypted data, you run this command:

chkdsk H: /f

At any rate the system will prompt you to do that under ACTION REQUIRED. I hope this post saved your day.