{"id":1446,"date":"2012-10-26T02:30:39","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T02:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2012-10-26T02:36:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T02:36:10","slug":"how-to-secure-usb-drive-with-bitlocker-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/how-to-secure-usb-drive-with-bitlocker-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Secure USB Drive with BitLocker To Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

Losing a USB flash drive can be the stuff of nightmares if it contains sensitive or valuable information. If your computer is running the Ultimate or Enterprise edition of Windows 8\/7\/Vista, you can use Microsoft’s included BitLocker To Go<\/strong> feature to encrypt your entire USB drive.<\/p>\n

BitLocker To Go allows you to encrypt the data stored on a USB drive and restrict access with a password. Without the password, the USB drive is worthless. When you connect the encrypted USB drive to a Windows computer, you are prompted for the password, and upon entering it you can read and write to the drive as you normally would.<\/p>\n

In this article I will walk through the steps of securing a USB drive (thumb drive) with Bitlocker To Go in Windows 7.<\/p>\n

How to Secure USB Drive with BitLocker To Go?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Connect the USB drive for which you want to enable BitLocker Encryption.<\/p>\n

Click Start, then click Control Panel. Click System and Security<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Click BitLocker Drive Encryption<\/strong>. This screen presents a list of all the drive partitions and the connected USB drives which could be protected with BitLocker To Go.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Click the Turn On BitLocker<\/strong> link option near your USB drive. It starts the initialization process of BitLocker Drive Encryption.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Once the initialization process is complete, BitLocker To Go will prompt you to set up a password that you will use to unlock the drive. If you have a smart card, you can use its PIN to unlock the drive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After you set up a password or use a smart card, BitLocker To Go will prompt you to store a recovery key. You can use the recovery key to unlock your drive in the event that you forget the password or lose your smart card.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When you create the password and save your recovery key, you’ll be prompted to begin the encryption process.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Click on Start Encrypting<\/strong> button. The amount of time that it will take to complete the process will depend on how large the drive is.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When the encryption is complete, you’ll notice that the drive icon shows a lock on the drive.<\/p>\n

The next time you plug in the USB drive to a Windows machine you will be prompted to enter the password to gain access to the drive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In future, any file you save on that drive will be encrypted automatically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Losing a USB flash drive can be the stuff of nightmares if it contains sensitive or valuable information. If your computer is running the Ultimate or Enterprise edition of Windows 8\/7\/Vista, you can use Microsoft’s included BitLocker To Go feature to encrypt your entire USB drive. BitLocker To Go allows you to encrypt the data […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[644,647,11,646,645],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips-tricks","category-windows-7","tag-bitlocker-to-go","tag-encrypt-usb-drive","tag-password","tag-protect-usb-drive","tag-secure-usb-drive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1456,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}