Protect Your Data: How to Use Bitlocker Disk Encryption Windows 10, 11 – Step by Step

hi everyone frank westfall here in this

video i will show you how to enable and

use bitlocker disk encryption with or

without a tpm chip and how to use

bitlocker to go

with windows 10 or windows 11.

bitlocker is an application that is

built into all microsoft operating

systems since windows 7

and it allows you to encrypt the

contents of your system disk or your

system disk and another disk and also

encrypt the contents of removable disks

like usb flash thumb drives this means

that if those disks are ever lost or

stolen or the computer itself is ever

lost or stolen anyone who has those

disks won't be able to read any of the

data on it unless they have the

encryption key as well and as long as

your encryption key isn't with the

computer when it's lost or stolen

there's no way they can have the

encryption key

so what that means is that if i lose

this laptop or it gets stolen and i have

bitlocker disk encryption enabled even

if someone pulls the disk out

and puts it in another computer

they will not be able to read the

contents on this disk it is encrypted

and if a person doesn't have bitlocker

just encryption or some other type of

disk encryption enabled and they lose

their computer

and i happen to find it or anyone who's

relatively savvy with computers

we'll be able to pull the disc out

put it in another computer and instantly

access all the data on it anything

that's unencrypted is just there for the

taking

so i highly recommend that if you have

sensitive data on a laptop

or a removable thumb drive

that you encrypt the contents of it

the worst thing that can happen is you

have sensitive data and then you're not

thinking about whether or not the device

gets lost or stolen and then it gets

lost or stolen and you don't care about

the actual laptop you care about the

data well with bitlocker disk encryption

if that happens you don't have to worry

because your data is protected it's not

going to be red it's not going to be

able to be used you might be out the

device you might have lost the laptop or

you might have lost a thumb drive but

you didn't lose your data for this video

you will need any pc computer or laptop

a flash thumb drive and it doesn't have

to have much storage four gigs or above

would be fine and if you're wondering

how i'm running windows 11 without a tpm

chip because i'm going to show you

bitlocker without a tpm chip and with a

tpm chip i show how to bypass the new

tpm requirements for windows 11

in my other video called your pc does

not meet minimum requirements how to

bypass tpm 2.0 and run windows 11 on

older pc

the link for that video will be in the

description below okay here we go first

i'm going to show you how to use

bitlocker without a tpm than with a tpm

and then also show you how to use

bitlocker to go for usb flash drives

i'll show you that there's no tpm

enabled

this computer actually has a tpm chip

but i have it disabled in the bios to

check your tpm status you can type in

tpm.msc

in the search run bar

and you can see that this computer

doesn't think it has a tpm chip because

when it's turned off in the bios it

doesn't even get powered on it's like

the chip doesn't even exist when you

turn it off in the bios

so we don't have a tpm chip but we're

still going to use bitlocker just fine

the next thing we want to do is in the

search run box type in gp

edit

dot msc

and we want to go to local computer

policy

administrative templates

expand that go to windows components

expand that

and then go to bitlocker drive

encryption and expand that

and then operating system drives

and then if we slide this over over here

require additional authentication at

startup double click that

turn it to enabled and then check this

box if it isn't already checked allow

bitlocker without a compatible tpm

requires a password or startup key on a

usb flash drive

we're going to hit ok

so now we can use bitlocker without a

tpm

and we can go to

control panel

and then

bitlocker drive encryption and then we

just want to turn on bitlocker

and this is where you want to insert

your usb drive we're going to need it in

a second

you can choose

to use a usb drive

to decrypt the disk

before operating system login

or you can choose to use a password and

i'll show you what it looks like with a

password login in a second when we're

done with this i'm going to use a

password to decrypt the system drive

i recommend using a complex password for

this

and then

we're going to save

the recovery key

onto the flash drive

i've already named this one win11

bitlock

and then hit next

and you can choose the first option

if you want to do your whole disk it

does take longer but that just encrypts

the entire disk regardless of whether or

not there's data on the disk for the

purpose of speed i'm going to do

the top option here

and i'm going to use the new encryption

mode

here you want to uncheck this

and then hit start encrypting

and then you get this notification

encryption is in progress encryption of

c by bitlocker drive encryption has

started when bitlocker disk encryption

is running even before it's finished

encrypting the entire disk

you can shut down and restart the

computer it picks up wherever

it left off when you shut down the

computer if it hasn't finished its

encryption process the encryption

process is a one-time thing and then

after that it's just encrypted this is

what logging in looks like

after you've enabled bitlocker without a

tpm chip you're first asked for a

password to decrypt the system disk and

then you enter the password to log in

and those can be two separate passwords

or they could be the same i recommend

that they're different so first i'm just

going to enter the bitlocker password

now the system disk is decrypted

and the operating system can load

and now i can log into the operating

system

and i'm in that's what logging in looks

like when you use bitlocker without a

tpm chip if you use bitlocker with a tpm

chip it looks exactly like normal login

because the tpm delivers the decryption

password as the computer starting up

automatically without you even knowing

that's happening okay so i've turned my

tpm chip on in the system bios and if

you're not sure if you have a tpm chip

you can go into your bios

and go under security

and then if you have tpm you'll see tpm

security as an option i'm going to turn

on my tpm chip now and then show you

bitlocker with tpm

hit apply

and then when you hit apply you get

these options

i'm going to do

tpm acpi support

and then you have to hit activate as

well and now the tpm chip can be used by

the motherboard and by the operating

system

hit apply and exit that's how you turn

tpm on in your bios now i'm going to

turn on bitlocker again but this time

with the tpm chip first i'm just going

to do the tpm.msc

command in the search run bar

to show the tpm status so here it shows

that there is a tpm chip

and you can actually also check the

firmware version of your tpm chip right

here specification version 1.2 this is a

tpm chip that is running tpm firmware

1.2 can exit out of that

and then i'm just going to also show you

that

the group policy modification

has been undone as well

so if i go back to that same spot

you can see that i've reverted this to

not configured then go to control panel

and bitlocker drive encryption again

turn on bitlocker

and we want to

save

the recovery key

to

this disk this is the usb disk that i

have

say yes

your recovery key has been saved and

it's really important that you save your

recovery key and then actually keep it

because if you get locked out of your

disk and you need to get back in you

have to have that encryption key or you

will not be able to get that data

i've actually had to use my recovery key

to get into an encrypted disk before so

just keep it in a safe place and then

hit next

and we're going to use the top option

again

and then new encryption mode yes

and then for this one we can actually do

the run bit locker system check what

it's going to do is look for a tpm chip

and it says okay everything looks good

restart now and then the encryption will

start okay i've restarted and i'm going

to check the status of the bitlocker

encryption

uh control panel bitlocker drive

encryption and you can see that the

encryption is in progress right now

you'll notice that you're able to shut

down and restart the computer and it

does not disrupt the process of the

encryption you can also turn off

bitlocker here very simply by hitting

turn off bitlocker

and then this will decrypt the disk the

disk has been decrypted and now we're

back to where we started the last thing

i'm going to show you is how to use

bitlocker to go which is for use with

usb flash thumb drives

so maybe you don't want to encrypt your

entire system disk inside the computer

itself but you want to have

some sensitive data encrypted in a flash

thumb drive you can use this to do that

so i'm going to encrypt this flash thumb

drive

just turn on bitlocker

we're going to use a password to unlock

it

and then i'm going to save the bitlocker

encryption key i'm going to actually

just put it on the desktop of this

computer i recommend actually putting it

on a separate usb drive but for the

purpose of this demonstration i'm going

to put it just on the desktop of this

computer

the recovery key has been saved that

step is really important you want to

make sure that you see your recovery key

has been saved

and hit next and then we're going to use

the top option again

and compatible mode has to be used for

drives that can be moved from the device

hit next and yes we are ready to start

encrypting this usb drive

now i'm going to remove this drive and

then plug it back in so you can see what

it looks like when you plug the drive in

so go to eject media

safe to remove

pull it out

and then put it back in

bitlocker drive encryption unlock drive

d the drive is bitlocker protected

enter the password

and now the drive has been unlocked

and

we can access the data on it

there isn't any data on this it's just

the recovery keys from the

testing of bitlocker that i did before

the video and then also the recovery

keys that we created during this video

and i also want to show you real quick

what it looks like if you have the usb

disk in and you haven't entered the

bitlocker decryption key so this is what

it would be like for someone that found

your usb disk but they don't have the

bitlocker password to decrypt the drive

they plug it in their computer they go

to access it and

they're not getting in

even if they loaded this up on a linux

system or some other type of computer

and then they can actually open it

the actual data in it is encrypted so

it's just a bunch of gibberish it

doesn't make any sense you can also

decrypt the usb drive the same way that

you decrypted the system drive

i just did a decryption of the usb drive

so it's just back to a normal usb drive

all you have to do is hit the turn off

bitlocker under

bitlocker to go and then select the

drive and then hit turn off bitlocker

all right that's it i hope this

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