Azure VM stops working after encrypting C drive?

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So this is the second time ive run into this. Ive started the process of enabling bitlocker on C drive. It asks for password and i supply one. It then asks to restart and i do. Azure portal shows it as running, but when i try to connect, it shows as the computer being off. Ideas? I really need to get back in there.

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You cannot simply encrypt an Azure VM by enabling bitlocker. The only way to encrypt the disk is to go through the Azure Disk Encryption process. This requires storing your encryption keys in Azure Keyvault. While this process enables bitlocker it needs to get the encryption key from keyvault because while the machine is booting you don't have access to the console to enter a password.

If you have enabled bitlocker on a vm, hopefully it has failed on the first verify boot, and if you force a reboot it will work.

If you have skipped the verify step and gone straight to encrypting the disk you will need to mount the disk in another VM and use your recovery key to access the data again.