Is It Better to Turn Off BitLocker Before Changing Motherboard?

Is it better to turn off BitLocker before changing motherboard?

Yes, it is generally recommended to turn off BitLocker before changing the motherboard on a computer. BitLocker is a disk encryption program included with some Windows operating systems (Windows 11/10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions), and it uses various components of the hardware, including the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) on the motherboard, to secure the encryption keys.

Changing the motherboard can be considered a significant hardware change, and if BitLocker is still active when you replace the motherboard, it may result in the system not being able to access the encrypted drive. This could lead to data loss or an inability to boot the system.

How to turn off BitLocker before changing motherboard?

To disable BitLocker successfully, you can choose any of the following methods:

Method 1. Disable BitLocker encryption

Step 1. Open Control Panel and go to "System and Security" > "BitLocker Drive Encryption".

Step 2. Click Turn off BitLocker on the drive that you want to decrypt.

Step 3. Confirm whether you want to decrypt your drive, then click Yes to start the process, and your drive will not be protected anymore.

Method 2. Disable BitLocker encryption via CMD

Step 1. Click the Windows Start menu, search for CMD, and open Command Prompt as administrator.

Step 2. If your is locked, you need to type the following command to unlock it:

manage-bde -unlock E: -RecoveryPassword YOUR-BITLOCKER-RECOVERY-KEY .

Step 3. Execute the command "manage-bde -off E:"to decrypt the specified drive.

Note: Replace E with the real drive letter you want to turn off BitLocker for.

Method 3. PowerShell to turn off BitLocker encryption

Step 1. Right-click the Windows Start menu and select Windows PowerShell (admin) for administrative access.

Step 2. Enter "Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint 'E:'" in PowerShell, replacing 'E:' with the letter of the drive you want to decrypt.

Step 3. Decrypt all drives by typing "Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint $BLV" and pressing Enter.

Method 4. Disable BitLocker using third-party tools

If the native tools in Windows cannot disable BitLocker encryption, consider exploring alternative solutions. One recommendation is AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, a comprehensive disk and partition management tool available for all Windows users, especially for Windows Home users who need support for BitLocker-encrypted drives.

With this software, you can easily use its “BitLocker” feature to encrypt and decrypt drives seamlessly. If you want to remove BitLocker before changing the motherboard, you can follow the steps below to turn off BitLocker before motherboard replacement.

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.

Conclusion

Is it better to turn off BitLocker before changing motherboard? You can get a positive answer on this page and learn four easy ways to make it effectively.

As an all-in-one BitLocker tool, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional also offers other useful features to help you manage the BitLocker encryption drive better such as backing up the recovery key, changing passwords, locking/unlocking drive, etc.

By the way, if you suffer from data loss during the process of changing the motherboard, you can use AOMEI software to recover the lost file or clone hard drive as the backup before committing the operation.