How do I turn off BitLocker on a drive?
Hi everyone.
Leo Notenboom here for Askleo.com, I want to get right into turning it off so
that we can discuss a couple of the situations that this has coming up.
This is Windows 11.
Windows 10 has a similar placement of the feature you'll see here.
In a second, I'm basically hitting
Windows File Explorer and then looking at Local Disk C right clicking on it.
Now in Windows 10, you won't need to hit show more options.
In Windows 11, you do and this item will be right there.
Manage BitLocker.
That's where you want to go to.
If it doesn't say manage BitLocker, if it says something like turn BitLocker
on, or if it's not present at all, then you don't have BitLocker on this drive.
So it's already turned off and it's not something you have to deal with.
Manage BitLocker is the place to go
and the thing to do is, of course to turn off BitLocker.
We'll go ahead and turn off BitLocker
and this is now going to take some time, which is why I wanted to get it started.
So the problem comes up surprisingly often
these days and the reason is kind of unfortunate in my mind.
The scenario is this you've purchased
a new machine and when you get that machine, you start using it.
You start doing whatever you do with it.
There's no indication that this is the case, but somewhere along the line you
discover that BitLocker has been turned on.
In fact, many OEMs many manufacturers are
for unclear reasons, enabling BitLocker from the start when you get your machine.
So if you're not certain that your machine
isn't running BitLocker, I would actually suggest you have a look
and make sure you understand what that setting is.
If you're running Windows Home editions, it shouldn't be an issue for you.
But if you're running Windows Pro or one
of the other bigger additions like Enterprise or whatever,
definitely take a look and see if BitLocker has been turned on for you.
You have two choices.
You can turn it off and as you see here, BitLocker is now off.
The drive is not encrypted.
This basically means that you're not tied
to any bit locker, recovery keys or anything like that.
I'm going to go ahead and turn BitLocker back on.
This is an option if you want your machine
to be protected by BitLocker, hold disk encryption.
The reason I'm suggesting you turn it on is because as part of the encryption
process, you will be given the option to back up your recovery key.
Note that when you got your machine,
you weren't given this option, you just were given an encrypted drive
without really knowing where the recovery key is or is there even one available?
This is important. Your recovery key is important and I
strongly suggest that you make sure you can get one.
I'm going to go ahead and have it saved
to my Microsoft account which has done and I can save it to a file.
I can also print it if I like Microsoft account is good enough in this case
and I'll hit next, we're going to go ahead and just encrypt the used space.
That's really all we need to do and off it goes.
So it's very quick.
Depending on how much data you have it could take a lot longer depending
on the size of your drive, depending on the speed of your drive
and that's true for both the decryption and the encryption process.
The reason I bring this up and the reason
I want you to look to see if you've got it turned on and possibly turn it off anyway
is so that you can go through this process of getting and saving a recovery key.
If you have BitLocker turned on if you find that BitLocker is turned on and you
didn't turn it on then I want you to if there is an option to save a recovery key
do so immediately because without that recovery key if anything ever happens
to your drive if you have to move that drive to another machine,
any of those kinds of things you won't be able to access the data that's on it.
Let's face it, that's the whole point of BitLocker.
You want that data encrypted so nobody can
get at it without the key you need the key if you want to be able to get at it.
So once this is done, you'll see here it says it's complete close.
Now that BitLocker is on you still have
the option of backing up your recovery key.
So if you decide not to turn BitLocker off
and you haven't already backed up your recovery key, come here.
Anyway, back up the recovery key so that should you ever need it,
you'll have it available and you won't lose all the data on your drive.
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I'm Leo Notenboom and this is askleo.com. Thanks for watching.