Bitlocker is a Windows 7 feature that is very useful for people that store important data on the internal hard drive, external hard drive or on USB drives.
BitLocker can be used if you do not have Trusted Platform Module ( TPM ). Because they often get lost or stolen, today we are going to show you how to protect your important data that you stored on an USB Drive, how to encrypt, password protect or decrypt a USB Drive.
BitLocker USB Drive Encryption & Decrypt USB Drive.
Encrypting and password protecting an USB drive can be done very easily, in just a few steps.
- Connect your USB Drive to your PC then go to Computer > Select the drive and right click it the drive, then click on Turn On Bitlocker.
- Select “Use a password to unlock the drive” then enter your password in the two fields and then click Next.
- In the next step you are going to get a cod with the help of which you can unlock your USB stick if you forget the password. This is called Bitlocker Recovery Key.
Click on “Save the recovery Key to a file” to save the password in a .txt file or your PC or click on “Print the Recovery Key” to have your key printed on a sheet of paper. After you pick one of these options, click on Next.
- In this step you are being asked once again if you are sure you want to encrypt the drive. The encryption time is proportional with the volume of the drive. Click on Start Encrypting if you are sure.
- Bitlocker Drive Encryption – once the encryption of the drive has started you have to wait until it’s finished. You have the option to “pause” the operation however this option does not stop the entire process. To ensure that you do not lose the data of your drive you have to ensure that this process will not going to be stopped because of a power blackout or an accidental connection problem of the drive.
- At the end of the encryption process you will receive the message: Encryption of drive is complete.
After this step has been completed, your drive has been successfully encrypted.
If you disconnect and then reconnect your USB drive to your PC or another PC, you will not be able to access the content unless you type in the password you have chosen.
Bitlocker offers the possibility to unlock access to your USB without having to enter the password. It’s recommended that you do this only if you are the only user of that specific PC. Automatically unlock on this computer from now on – you have to use this option in order to unlock the drive for your computer.
Once you have encrypted your USB drive, right click on the drive letter from “Computer” and click on Manage Bitlocker to gain access to the Bitlocker options list.
The following options are available
- change password or unlock the drive.
- remove password for the encrypted drive
- add a smart card to unlock the drive – this option allows you to use an SD Card or another USB stick un order to unlock access to the encrypted drive, this is an alternative for password.
- save or print recovery key again – in case you lost the file or sheet of paper where you stored the recover password key.
- automatically unlock this drive on the computer – this option unlocks the drive only for your PC.
If you want to decrypt an encrypted USB drive you have to follow a few simple steps
- Go to control panel and click on System and Security.
- Click on BitLocker Drive Encryption.
- Click on Turn Off Bitlocker and click on Decrypt Drive.
- wait until the decryption process is complete.
It’s very important not to disconnect the drive during the encryption or decryption process. It may lead to data damage or even at the destruction of the entire drive.
how can i clone a flash drive (usb key)that i not showing on the system but quite working fine?
thank you