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How to use BitLocker in Windows 8?
If you want to know how to use BitLocker in Windows 8, go through the tutorial below.
what is BitLocker?
BitLocker Drive Encryption (get details) is a full disk encryption feature that comes with the Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Microsoft’s Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. BitLocker can be used to encrypt an entire fixed drive. By default it uses the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption algorithm in Cipher-block chaining (CBC) mode with a 128 bit key. Not only that, it also provides the Elephant diffuser for additional disk encryption specific security, which is not not provided by Advanced Encryption Standard.
Steps to Enable BitLocker
Follow the steps to know how to enable BitLocker in your Windows 8 PC.
1. Right-click on a drive, and select Turn on BitLocker option from the context menu to encrypt the entire drive.
2. Now, you need to choose a password that will be used to unlock the drive. Retype the password in the second text field and click on Next.
3. Next, you will be asked to choose a method to store your recovery key. In case you forget your password, this recovery key is needed to unlock the drive. You may save the recovery key in a flash drive or can save it in any location of your computer. If you wish you can also print the recovery key. Windows 8 comes with another option that you can save your key file to SkyDrive.
4. If you choose Save to SkyDrive option. Saving Recovery key to SkyDrive progress bar will appear.
And at the end of the saving process you will get the following message:-
5. Now, click on the Next button.
6. Next, choose how much of your drive to encrypt and press Next button.
7. Finally, encryption process will be started after you select the Start Encrypting button.
You can see that encryption process is in progress.
And after the process is finished the drive icon will change to show the drive is encrypted with BitLocker.
Steps to access BitLocker enabled drive
To access BitLocker enabled encrypted drive you will need to enter in the password.
And if you forget your password you need the key file to decrypt the drive. The key file is basically a .txt file and it contains the Recovery Key. The key file more or less looks like following:-