BitLocker offers a good way to protect your data and prevent unauthorized access to your data. In this article, we will describe how to quickly and easily encrypt and manage BitLocker in Partition Assistant.
Encryption is a good way to protect the data on your device. BitLocker is a Windows security feature that provides encryption for entire volumes, addressing the threats of data theft or exposure from lost, stolen, or inappropriately decommissioned devices. However, BitLocker isn't available on the Home Edition of Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems. Fortunately, there is a tool BitLocker available in Partition Assistant that allows you to quickly and easily encrypt BitLocker and manage BitLocker encryption on the Home and other supported Windows system versions.
It is a paid feature to encrypt and manage BitLocker if your system is Windows Home version because the feature is very useful and important but it is not available in Windows Home versions. Please upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, Server, or above versions to use the feature.
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.
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.)
Tips: It only supports encrypting NTFS partitions. Other partition file systems, for example, FAT or FAT32 cannot be encrypted.
3. Please set and confirm a password to encrypt the drive and click "Next".
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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.
Tips: 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.
If you select "Print the recovery key", it will enable the print function on your PC to print the recovery key.
Then, please click the "Next" button to start the encryption process.
Important: If you would like to encrypt your current system drive, you will be required to restart your PC to enter into the Windows PE environment. Please click "OK" to continue.
The program will automatically create a Windows PE environment on your PC.
Tips: 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.
After it is created successfully, the PC will reboot into Windows PE mode to encrypt the drive. After the encryption is completed, you will get an encryption complete window and you can click "OK" to restart your PC.
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.
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After you turn on the BitLocker on the drive following the above steps, you can easily manage the encrypted BitLocker on your PC. Once a drive is BitLocker encrypted, the drive will be locked automatically. Since the drive is locked, other options available to manage BitLocker will not be displayed. To manage the drive BitLocker, please first unlock the drive.
To manage BitLocker, please first click the "Tools" main tab and select "BitLocker" to find the encrypted drive. (Or, right-click the encrypted partition you want to manage, select the "BitLocker" option, and then choose the option you want to manage.)
Generally, there are 4 options available to manage BitLocker encryption: back up the recovery key, change the password, lock the drive, and turn off BitLocker.
1. Find the encrypted drive you would like to back up the recovery key and click the option "Back up recovery key".
2. You will be asked to enter the password you set. Please enter the correct password and click the "Next" button.
3. After you enter the correct password, there are 2 ways available to back up your recovery key: "Save to a file" and "Print the recovery key". Please select a way you prefer and then click the "Next" button.
If you select "Save to a file", you need to choose a location on your PC to save the recovery key. It will generate a TXT file with the name: Bitlocker Recovery Key + 45-bit Key.
Tips: Please do not back up 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.
In the generated TXT file, the recovery key is saved. The recovery key is important for you to manage the BitLocker. Please keep the TXT file and the recovery key in the file. If you select "Print the recovery key", it will enable the print function on your PC to print the recovery key.
1. Find the encrypted drive you would like to change the password and click the option "Change password".
2. There are 2 ways available to change the password: Use password to change drive password and Use recovery key to change drive password. Please select either way you like.
If you select "Use password to change drive password", please first enter the correct old password, type a new password, and then confirm the new password. After all is set, please click the "Modify" button.
If you select "Use recovery key to change drive password", please first enter the recovery key saved in the TXT file or printed when you encrypted the drive, type a new password, and then confirm the new password. After all is set, please click the "Modify" button.
3. If the modification is successful, you will get a "Password changed successfully" window.
If a drive is not locked, you can click the option "Lock the drive" to directly lock the drive.
If a drive has already been locked, "Unlock the drive" will be the only available option to manage BitLocker. You need to first unlock the drive before managing the drive BitLocker.
1. To unlock the drive, please click the option "Unlock the drive".
2. There are still 2 ways available to unlock the drive: Use a password to unlock the drive and Use a recovery key to unlock the drive. Please select either way as per your need.
If you select "Use a password to unlock the drive", please enter the right password and then click the "Unlock" button.
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If you select "Use a recovery key to unlock the drive", please enter the recovery key saved in the TXT file or printed when you encrypted the drive, and then click the "Unlock" button.
3. If the entered password/recovery key is correct, the drive will be unlocked.
1. Find the encrypted drive you would like to decrypt and click the option "Turn off BitLocker".
2. There are still 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.
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3. Then, the decryption process will start and it might take time to decrypt the drive. Before the process is finished, please do not terminate the program, remove the drive, or turn off the power.
Once the decryption process is finished, please click "Completed". Finally, the BitLocker on the drive is decrypted.
Following the above process, you can quickly and easily use AOMEI Partition Assistant to encrypt BitLocker and manage BitLocker encryption on your computer drives. It will be faster to encrypt and manage BitLocker encryption compared with Windows. Once the drive is BitLocker encrypted, the data on the drive is well protected. It offers an effective way to protect your data against loss, exposure, and theft.
AOMEI Partition Assistant also offers other useful tools, for example, data recovery and partition recovery, which will help you recover your important data and partitions.
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FAQs:
Q: After the system drive is encrypted, the Windows boot needs to decrypt the BitLocker at the system startup. What can I do to boot the system?
A: For system C partition BitLocker encryption, it is recommended to turn on the auto-unlock under Windows Control-Panel-BitLocker Drive Encryption. In this way, there is no need to decrypt the BitLocker at the system startup.
If the auto-unlock it not turned on, you need to enter the BitLocker recovery key to decrypt the BitLocker encryption. Or, you can use a bootable media created by AOMEI Partition Assistant to boot into WinPE to first decrypt the system drive and boot again.
Q: If a drive has been encrypted in Windows, can I still manage the BitLocker in Partition Assistant?
A: Yes, you can still manage the BitLocker encryption in Partition Assistant.
Q: Can I encrypt a FAT 32 partition?
A: No, it is only able to encrypt the NTFS partition. Partitions with other file systems are not supported.
Q: Why does it fail to create Windows PE during the encryption?
A: The possible issue is that there is no recovery environment on the computer or the environment is corrupted. To solve this issue, you can create a bootable media and manually boot your PC into WinPE to encrypt the drive.