BitLocker Drive Encryption - Windows 7 Drive - Turn On or Off with no TPM

Brink said:

It must have been since it is not listed in Disk Management.

I suppose that you could either shrink the F: Drive to create a new parition to use, or attach and use another virtual drive.

Thank You so much Sir for your help. I needed a green light to create a new partition. Thank you once again.

After creating partition, I think it would be normal if I apply the your tutorial on the new partition??

Brink said:

You're welcome Khan.

Well, since it will be considered an internal drive instead of the Windows 7 C: drive, then you would want to use the tutorial below instead of the one on the first page. :)

BitLocker Drive Encryption - Internal Data Hard Drives - Turn On or Off

Once again Thanks a lot sir. You Rock. SevenForums rock.

+rep.

I have followed the instructions for turning on BitLocker with no TPM. It looks like the startup key is being written properly to my USB flash drive, but after restarting in order to run BitLoocker encyption, I'm getting this notice ... BitLocker could not be enabled. The BitLocker startup key or recovery password cannot be found on the USB device. Verify that you have the correct USB device, that the USB device is plugged into the computer on an active USB port, restart the computer, and then try again. If the problem persists, contact the computer manufacturer for BIOS upgrade instructions. C: was not encrypted. See attachment.

The USB flash drive is plugged in. It has what appears to be a startup key (.BEK file) in the root folder. It also has a text file in the root folder which contains the recovery key.

Any ideas?

I'm trying to enable a PIN on a Windows 7 Enterprise x32 machine with no TPM. I'm able to encrypt the OS drive with BitLocker using a startup key stored on an SD card, but I'm not having much luck enabling a PIN that the user must enter at every startup.

according to MS link here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...tup-key-or-PIN

If your computer was not manufactured with TPM version 1.2 or higher, you can create a BitLocker startup key using a USB flash drive to store the encryption keys and decryption keys. [...]
In addition to the option of creating a startup key, you have the option of creating a startup personal identification number (PIN). You can create either the startup key or the startup PIN, but not both.

You can only create a startup key or PIN when you turn on BitLocker for the first time.

Is it possible to use a startup PIN and how is this accomplished?

Thanks for your insights!

Shawn,

Thank you for your reply and forgive my slow response (I got pulled in another direction). You are correct. As it turns out, the BIOS we're using on our hardware does not support the reading of USB drives during boot. So, we're looking for an alternative solution, even putting a TPM on board. Thanks for your help!

Kris