Recently installed Win7.7100 to my laptop and activated BitLocker on the C:\ drive. I'm unable, however, to save the recovery key to a USB flash drive (that option is greyed out in the "How do you want to store your recovery key?" dialog) and, if I save the key to a text file on the USB drive, the key is not recognized by the computer upon rebooting. Any suggestions?

Bump

Hi Jim,Same as windows vista you need to set a policy that enables you to save the data to an usb flash drive.From 4sysops: http://4sysops.com/archives/review-windows-7-bitlocker/But USB stick support has to be enabled before being used. Unfortunately, this cant be done via the Control Panel; it has to be enabled through Group Policy or the Local Group Policy Editor (type gpedit.msc at Start Search). I am sure this will confuse many people. The settings location has changed slightly in Windows 7: Local Computer Policy | Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components |Operating Systems Drives | BitLocker Drive Encryption -> Require Additional Authentication at Startup. Please note there are two independent keys for Windows 7 and Server 2008/Vista.Does this solves your problem?Kind RegardsDFT

DFT, thanks. I'll give it a shot. JW

DFT, I believe the article you referenced relates to using BitLocker on a computer that doesn't have a TPM module, not to simply backing up the key. But I'll give it a shot.

Jim,If you just want to store the bitlocker recovery key to you usb stick.You need to set the following group policy.Local Computer Policy | Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components |Operating Systems Drives | BitLocker Drive Encryption -> Control Panel Setup: Configure recovery options"Kind RegardsDFT

Having problems with the graphical interface? Use the command line tool instead. The (Manage BitlockerDriveEncrytion) manage-bde.exe is designed for that in the windows7 environment. If you have the system drive already bitlocked and the "Save BitLocker recovery key to USB flash drive" option is greyed out: you may do it manually with the command line tool. use the manage-bde -status command to see what kind of protectors do you have on the drive. Then you may add your own protector with the recovery-key by using this command: manage-bde -protectors -add c: -recoverykey z: where c: is the bitlocked system drive and z: is the plugged in USB pendrive. You may check the status again to see if the new protector is shown in the list. The recovery key will be saved to the pendrive as a hidden file.