We have win 7 installed with no 100/200 Mb System Partition on a laptop with 200Gb HDD. The machine has only one NTFS 200Gb Active Primary partition on its Hard disk where win 7 is installed. Computer does not support TPM. Ther is no other partition on the HDD. We want to Turn BitLoacker on now. Does Bitlocker create a new System Partition when we encrypt the Hard disk? machine's BIOS can Bootup from a USBKey/UFD. We want a USB key to startup the computer at each boot-up. If we dont want the startup from a bitlocker's UFD, can we just have a PassPhrase/password to start the laptop. Suggestions r welcome

good evening : check this link it may help you : http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4681-bitlocker-drive-encryption-windows-7-drive-turn-off-no-tpm.html good luckSystem Engineer | vNext Consulting

The answer to your first question is yes. You need at least 2 partitions for BitLocker to work. Quoting from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766295%28WS.10%29.aspx#BKMK_S1: "For BitLocker to work, you must have at least two partitions on your hard disk. The first partition is the system volume and labeled S in this document. This volume contains the boot information in an unencrypted space. The second partition is the operating system volume and labeled C in this document. This volume is encrypted and contains the operating system and user data." You will need to create the second partition before you enable BitLocker. The answer to your second question is under scenario 3 under the same link given above. Quoting from there: "For a non-TPM scenario, you use a startup key to authenticate yourself. The startup key is located on a USB flash drive inserted into the computer before the computer is turned on. In such a scenario, your computer must have a BIOS that can read USB flash drives in the pre-operating system environment (at startup). Your BIOS can be checked by the hardware test near the end of the BitLocker setup wizard." Please revert back here if you have any queries. Hope it helps! Kunal D Mehta - a Windows Server Enthusiast.

The answer to your first question is yes. You need at least 2 partitions for BitLocker to work. Quoting from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766295%28WS.10%29.aspx#BKMK_S1: "For BitLocker to work, you must have at least two partitions on your hard disk. The first partition is the system volume and labeled S in this document. This volume contains the boot information in an unencrypted space. The second partition is the operating system volume and labeled C in this document. This volume is encrypted and contains the operating system and user data." You will need to create the second partition before you enable BitLocker. Do I have to create a partition on my own, manually [ 3rd party s/w] OR Bitlocker does it for the end-user? Right now,the win7 sits on the only one NTFS Primary Active partition on drive C:. That HDD has no other partition. The answer to your second question is under scenario 3 under the same link given above. Quoting from there: "For a non-TPM scenario, you use a startup key to authenticate yourself. The startup key is located on a USB flash drive inserted into the computer before the computer is turned on. In such a scenario, your computer must have a BIOS that can read USB flash drives in the pre-operating system environment (at startup). Your BIOS can be checked by the hardware test near the end of the BitLocker setup wizard." Please revert back here if you have any queries. Hope it helps! Kunal D Mehta - a Windows Server Enthusiast.

Yes, you'll have to create a partition manually. But to do so, you will not need any 3rd party tools. You can go to Disk Management and Shrink the volume. This will create a new volume in a matter of minutes. Details on how to do it follow: Start > Right-click on My Computer > Select "Manage". An MMC will open. You will see "Disk Management" written on the left side. Click on that. Then in the middle pane, you'll see a blue box below that says C:. Right click on it and select "Shrink Volume". Enter the size of the new volume. Format it with NTFS. The steps that will follow on screen are pretty much guided and you shouldn't face any issue in creating a new partition. After completion, you'll have a new partition. You can now enable BitLocker. Please revert back here if you face any issues. Hope it helps!Kunal D Mehta - a Windows Server Enthusiast.