Bitlocker, Microsoft’s drive encryption program, is one of the few features that actually separates Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise from the rest of the Windows 7 family, and Bitlocker To Go is one of the few features added to Bitlocker since its first appearance in Windows Vista. This guide will show you not just how to encrypt a drive, but also how to use it after it has been encrypted.
Encrypting a Drive
For this trick, all you’ll need is one computer running Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Ultimate, and one USB flash drive. Any flash drive will do, from the cheapest 512 MB stick to the most expensive 128 GB behemoth.
Once you’ve plugged the drive in, open My Computer, right click the drive, and click Turn on Bitlocker.
Enabling Bitlocker on your flash drive
Once you’ve done that, you’ll have to navigate your way through a few prompts. This guide assumes you’re protecting your drive with a password and not with a smart card.
Preparing for encryption...
Input a password of your choosing. Remember, the security of the data is only as good as the password you use.
Print or save the recovery key and keep it in a safe place - if you forget your password, this is the only way you'll be able to access your data!
Click Start Encrypting to begin the encryption process.
Encrypting takes about five minutes on a 512MB flash drive - the larger the drive, the longer it will take. For best results, do not interrupt this process!
Once this process is complete, you’ll have an encrypted flash drive! Now, no one can access that data without your password.
Using an Encrypted Drive
Now, to clear up some misconceptions: I’ve read in some places that once your drive is encrypted, you’ll only be able to use it with computers running Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Ultimate – this is not true.
While you do need Ultimate or Enterprise to encrypt a drive, once it is encrypted, any edition of Windows 7 will be able to read and write to that drive normally, even the lowly Starter Edition. The only difference is that the drive appears in My Computer with a padlock next to it, like so:
An encrypted drive as seen in My Computer
If you don’t have Windows 7, not all is lost – you can still gain read access to your files from any computer running Windows XP or Windows Vista thanks to the Bitlocker To Go Reader, which is installed on every encrypted drive automatically.
Note: To read a drive from a Windows Vista or Windows XP computer, the drive must be FAT formatted, not NTFS.
Bitlocker To Go Reader in Windows XP
Once you’ve unlocked the drive, you can drag any files on it to the local computer for viewing or editing. This is a little limited, but if you need to be able to view a presentation or print a document from a computer that isn’t running Windows 7, you can do it, and it doesn’t require you to install any software on the Windows XP/Vista computer.
Unfortunately, if you want to use a Bitlocker-encrypted drive on a Mac OS X or Linux computer, you’re out of luck – Bitlocker To Go Reader is Windows-only.
Conclusions
Bitlocker To Go is an excellent tool for business users using Windows 7 Enterprise, and for consumers who cough up the dough for Windows 7 Ultimate. It’s easy to use, and makes securing any USB flash drive possible – since countless flash drives are lost or stolen every day, I’m sure this functionality will be much appreciated by many an IT department.
Bitlocker To Go’s biggest shortcoming is that it is only included in the very top tier of the Windows product line. Here’s hoping that, in the future, Microsoft ditches the increasingly pointless Ultimate edition and puts Bitlocker in the Professional edition of Windows instead – it just makes more sense.
