First of all - thank you to everyone who is behind and who contributes to this community effort. I have started the journey. Couldn’t have begun it without you.
My problem. . . .
I have the Windows 11 Home Edition and I am trying to enable Bitlocker per the instructions provided:
There is still no GUI way to enable encryption on Home edition without sending your recovery key to Microsoft. Windows 11 enabling encryption by default probably does mess up this guide though.
@enspIcIl you likely have to disable encryption in Settings, then follow the guide on the website (@ph00lt0’s suggestion might work as well, I’m not sure):
I think you are right that I will need to disable device encryption. I did think that the error suggested this when I read ‘Only one key protector of this type is allowed for this drive’ - the implication seemed to be that device encryption was standing in the way of drive encryption. And I do have device encryption enabled.
Hello
Point 1:
“Access [Advanced Startup Options. You need to reboot while pressing the F8 key before Windows starts and” This doesn’t work on all Laptops (for example on my HP Envy it didn’t).
I would suggest replacing it with:
Windows 11 : Settings → System → Recovery → Click on the “Restart Now” next to “Advanced Startup”
Windows 10: Settings → Recovery → Click on the “Restart Now” under the section of “Advanced Startup”
Point 2:
The guide then suggests: “manage-bde -on c: -used”
This didn’t work on my machine, until I deleted the Shadow copies of Drive C. I used a command, which I can’t recall perfectly but it was something like “manage-bde -on c: -DeleteVolumeShadowCopies”
This should be added to the guide.
Point 3:
Doesn’t this guide only apply to Drive C? Shouldn’t we add a notice to encrypt all other available drives by replacing (C) with the name of the Drive?
Point 4:
It’s not clear if the user can safely delete (BitLocker-Recovery-Key.txt) from the Desktop after copying it to an external storage.
Point 5:
Shouldn’t we add a command to check if Bitlocker is really enabled? Otherwise we can just copy my checking method using the GUI in the comment below
Point 6:
I really think we should add a command to disable Bitlocker if needed (as this method doesn’t exist anywhere online so there isn’t any guide to deactivate Bitlocker using the command line)
P.S: Thanks so much for this guide, which I couldn’t find anywhere on the internet besides Privacyguides. You guys rock
Regarding the GUI and modifying this Guide to a GUI-Based one:
I’m not sure that all Windows 11 Home editions have the GUI for Bitlocker or even normal device encryption ((I’m on the latest Windows 11 2H22). My device fulfills all requirements mentioned in the guide, I encrypted my C Drive using it but I still can’t see the option from the GUI.
Here’s the proof that Bitlocker is activated (using your guide) on C Drive but not D Drive on my machine:
(System → Storage → Advanced Storage Settings → Disk & Volumes)