How to Install BitLocker in Windows 11 Home Computer

This guide will show you how to install BitLocker in Windows 11 Home PC. If you are a Windows 11 Home PC user who wants to use BitLocker security to keep their data safe, read this post.

Posted by @Lucas August 19, 2024 Updated By @Lucas August 19, 2024

Does Windows 11 Home have BitLocker?

In the present moment, users of the Home version of Windows 11/10 do not have access to BitLocker drive encryption. This is similar to the situation with Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 before it.

There are a variety of ways to activate the BitLocker drive encryption feature, even though BitLocker is not compatible with Windows 11/10 Home. This article will discuss the steps involved in encrypting your drive using Windows 11 or Windows 10 Home.

Device encryption for Windows Home users

The Windows Home operating system has a security function called Device Encryption, which encrypts your drive to safeguard your data. Once the feature is on, only authorized individuals will be able to access your device and the data it contains. If your desktop computer or other electronic device is misplaced or stolen, your data will be protected from being accessed by unauthorized parties.

If you misplace your laptop, the information stored on your primary and secondary disks is completely inaccessible to anybody other than yourself because you are the only person who knows the password. The data is completely unorganized in every way.

On all Windows devices, the Device Encryption feature is initially activated by default. Both the Home and Pro versions of Windows 11 enable automated device encryption that is both more effective and quicker than the encryption provided by BitLocker.

Compared with device encryption, BitLocker, available in certain Windows versions, is more flexible and feature-rich. Windows 11/10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education integrate BitLocker, a full-device encryption and management system. Windows integrates it to encrypt drive data for complete protection. It can be activated for specific or all computer drives.

How to turn on Device Encryption

If your computer is equipped with a TPM (Trusted Platform Module), which may be either a TPM 1.2 or a TPM 2.0, and platform Secure Boot and UEFI Secure Boot are activated on your personal computer, also direct memory access (DMA) protection ought to be activated, you can also use Device Encryption to protect your drive.

Step 1. Sign in to Windows with an administrator account (you may have to sign out and back in to switch accounts). For more info, see Create a local or administrator account in Windows.

Step 2. Select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Device encryption.

Step 3. If device encryption is turned off, select Turn on.

How to install Bitlocker in Windows 11 Home

The built-in application is not the sole option available for BitLocker encryption of drives on a Windows 11 Home PC. So, we recommend that you select third-party software in this location.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is the most effective collaborator to assist you. The "BitLocker" function in this utility enables Windows Home users to BitLocker their drives, disks, and external devices. It is effortless to encrypt the target drives with BitLocker, even on Windows 7. Additionally, in order to mitigate the risk of key loss, you can save the key as a file on an alternative drive or to print it.

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1. Turn on BitLocker on Windows 11 Home PC

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click the "Tools" main tab and select "BitLocker". Or, right-click the partition you want to encrypt and click the "BitLocker"->"Turn on BitLocker" option in the Context Menu.

Step 2. All drives on the system will be displayed, including operating system drives, fixed data drives, and removable drives. Please find the partition you would like to encrypt BitLocker and click the "Turn on BitLocker" option. (Here, we take the drive D: as an example.)

Tip: Currently, it only supports encrypting NTFS partitions. Other partition file systems, for example, FAT or FAT32 cannot be encrypted.

Step 3. Please set and confirm a password to encrypt the drive and click "Next".

📌 Notes:

1. Encrypt used disk space only (faster and best for new PCs and Drives): If you are setting up BitLocker on a new PC or a new drive, you only need to encrypt the part of the drive that is currently being used. And, BitLocker will automatically encrypt the newly-added data.

2. Disk encryption compatible mode (suitable for removable data drives): Windows 10 (version 1511) introduces a new disk encryption mode (XTS-AES). This mode provides heavy integrity support but is not compatible with earlier versions of Windows.

If this is a removable drive to be used on an earlier version of Windows, you should select Compatible mode.

If this is a fixed drive, or if this drive will only be used on devices running at least Windows 10 (version 1511) or later, select the new encryption mode.

Step 4. Select a way to back up your recovery key. You can either select "Save to a file" or "Print the recovery key".

If you select "Save to a file", please choose a location on your PC to save the recovery key.

Tip: Please do not save the recovery key in the encrypted drive path. For example, it is unable to encrypt D: and save the recovery key on the same D: drive.

It will generate a TXT file with the name: Bitlocker Recovery Key + 45-bit Key. The recovery file will be saved in the TXT file. You can open the file to view the recovery key. Please keep the file. Then, please click the "Next" button to start the encryption process.

If you would like to encrypt your current system drive, you will be asked to restart your PC into Windows PE mode to execute the operation because it is the current system drive. The program will first create Windows PE and then boot the PC into Windows PE mode to encrypt the drive. After the encryption is finished, you can restart your PC.

Tip: AOMEI Partition Assistant will automatically detect whether your system has installed Windows AIK/ADK or not. If yes, it will start the Windows PE creation and then enter into WinPE to encrypt the drive. If not, please download and install Windows AIK/ADK first.

Step 5. The encryption process might take time to encrypt the drive. Before the process is finished, please do not terminate the program, remove the drive, or turn off the power.

Once the encryption process is finished, please click "Completed". Finally, the drive is BitLocker encrypted.

2. Turn off BitLocker encryption on Windows 11 Home PC

Step 1. Find the encrypted drive you would like to decrypt and click the option "Turn off BitLocker".

Step 2. There are 2 ways available to decrypt the drive: Use password to decrypt the drive and Use recovery key to decrypt the drive. Please select either way as per your need.

If you select "Use a password to decrypt the drive", please enter the right password and then click the "Decrypt" button.

If you select "Use a recovery key to decrypt the drive", please enter the recovery key saved in the TXT file or printed when you encrypted the drive, and then click the "Decrypt" button.

Step 3. Then, the decryption process will start and it might take time to decrypt the drive. Once the decryption process is finished, please click "Completed". Finally, the BitLocker on the drive is decrypted.

Ending

This post shows how to install BitLocker in Windows 11/10 Home is possible even though Microsoft doesn't support it directly. Data encryption is a critical factor in keeping your data safe. You can use AOMEI Partition Assistant Progessional to activate BitLocker encryption in Windows Home computer. Besides BitLocker, you can also use this robust tool to clone disk/partition to back up your important data, convert disk to MBR/GPT without data loss, extend drive space and so on. Also, there is the Server edition of this practical tool for Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012.