Can I use Bitlocker on my external hard drive?
Can I use bitlocker on my external hard drive without having to use it on my local c drive? Or is there something else that I can use to secure a seperate drive without having to buy different software?Thanks,Terry
July 28th, 2009 3:47pm

JT,You can't use the "Bitlocker" on removeable storage. Good news is that Microsoft adressed this issue in windows 7 with "Bitlocker To Go".The "Bitlocker To Go" technology allows you to encrypt removeable storage the same way as bitlocker does. You can view an excelent demo of "Bitlocker To Go" here : http://edge.technet.com/Media/Windows-7-Screencast-BitLocker-To-Go/Does this mean that you now have no option in vista (or Windows XP). Nope, the Windows OS still has an option for you and that is EFS(Encrypted File System).This is a little bit harder to configure, but once you configured EFS it works like a charm.More info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc700811.aspxIf you implement this think on the following items.-> your USB stick needs to be NTFS formated.-> configure a Data Recovery Agent-> configure your certificates on all the computers where you wish to use this stick.Kind RegardsDFT IM me - TWiTTer: @DFTER
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 29th, 2009 6:52am

AWESOME!!! :) I right clicked my external HDD (WD 500 GB) and saw the bitlocker option. Jumped ahead and encrypted it! (Win 7 Ultimate). It went well and in the end I was able to get the file that had the recovery key in it. Everything went well, and I succeeded in encrypting my data. ~140GB That was 12 hours ago. Since then, I have been trying to read :) my data on that drive. Super critical, something I collected over last 5 years...and wola!! i just cant open it. Tried everything from recovery, to key combinations to key recovery tool. Managed to get an additional external dr to recover data (by reading (kb/928201). That dint work either, and I dont have a keypackage to try option2. Until now, when I read this post and it turns everything upside down. So, I actually encrypted my drive so that nobody, not even me, can read off it? What a horrible thing to do...and horrible piece of s/w to use. Please tell me that there is some way of recovering my data, please please please! :((
November 4th, 2010 1:19pm

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics