Windows Home BitLocker is used to protect your drives using encryption. Do you know how to make it? In this article, you will learn how to turn on BitLocker encryption on Windows Home in different ways.
Yes, you should. Windows Home BitLocker is a disk encryption program included with Microsoft Windows operating systems. It provides a level of security by encrypting the entire disk volume, including the operating system, system files, and user data. The primary purpose of BitLocker is to protect the confidentiality and integrity of data on the computer, especially if the Device is lost or stolen.
Does Windows 11 Home have BitLocker? Unfortunately, the answer is no. BitLocker is not included in the Windows Home edition. It is typically available in the Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows.
Since Windows Home is lack of BitLocker feature, how can you encrypt important files in Windows 11 or 10 Home edition? Don’t worry, Windows 11/10 Home PC comes with the Device encryption feature that allows you to protect your files.
It is similar to Windows BitLocker, when it is enabled, the main system drive and any other secondary drives linked to the Device are encrypted, making the data undecipherable. Only individuals with the correct password can access this encrypted data.
As a built-in alternative to Windows Home BitLocker, Device encryption is also widely used by Windows Home users. Scroll down to see how to turn on the Device encryption.
To make sure the process of encrypting drives successful, you should make sure you have met these hardware requirements:
★ Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2 must be enabled.
★ Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware style.
✍ Notes - How to check requirements:
1. Type “System Information” into the Windows search bar and press the “Enter” key.
2. Once the System Information window appears, find the item called Device Encryption Support.
3. Check the information on the item. If it says “Meet prerequisites”, it means your Windows Home does meet the requirements. But if it reads “Reasons for failed automatic Device encryption: …”, you should take actions to make your PC satisfy the requirements.
Then, you can follow the steps below to enable Device encryption on your drive:
Step 1. Press Window + I to open Settings in Windows Home.
Step 2. Click on Update & Security.
Step 3. Choose the Device encryption selection from the panel. If you don't see Device encryption option, it most likely means your computer doesn't support one of the two requirements.
Step 4. In the "Device encryption" section of Settings, click the button labeled "Turn on" to activate it.
Note: If you want to disable Device encryption, repeat the step 1 to 4, and click “Turn off” to disactivate it.
As you can see, you can use Device encryption to take the place of Windows 11 Home BitLocker for file protection. But what if you cannot fulfill the requirements for Device encryption or want to seek a better way to encrypt hard drive data? Luckily, there is a partition manager called AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional meeting your needs.
It allows you to easily and quickly turn on the BitLocker drive encryption in all editions of Windows 11/10/8/7 which absolutely includes Windows Home edition. Here is a demo version of this software, download it and see how to use it:
Step1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click the "Tools" main tab and select "BitLocker".
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: 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".
Step 4. Select a way to back up your recovery key. You can either select "Save to a file" or "Print the recovery key".
Step 5. If you select "Save to a file", please choose a location on your PC to save the recovery key.
Then, please click the "Next" button to start the encryption process.
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.
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.
As mentioned above, you can still enjoy Windows Home BitLocker even though Windows 11/10 doesn’t support it directly. There is native Device encryption and third-party AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional for you to turn on BitLocker encryption.
Besides, AOMEI Partition Assistant can also help you clone hard drive, recover lost files, resize encrypted partitions, and more. By the way, there is Server editions for Windows Server users.