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

severedsolo said:

fantastic it works! now noone will be able to access my pron collection... umm i mean private documents lol

on a serious note, can i trouble you one last time Shawn? lets say that someone tries to access my computer without the key, when it reaches the "please insert key and press escape to reboot" screen, will it do any harm to the computer to do a hard power down?

No, not at all, but I would always recommend to save close anything you were working on before logging off of the computer though. :)

does it ask for a key if you log off then? i thought it was only on the initial bootup?

You know I can't remember if if also does this for just logging off and loggin on as well. As long as you have the USB key plugged in before, you'll be fine though.

thank you once again :) god (or what/whoever you believe in) bless you and your helpful nature

You're most welcome Martin. Thank you, and bless you as well. :)

iv just had a thought about this... it seems to me, that this way is actually more secure than the TPM way, i mean anyone can switch a TPM machine on and it will automatically unlock, with this method, i can keep my key on me, and noone can get at my OS...

or am i missing the point of TPM?

I have not used one with a TPM before, but I would imagine that it would be setup to ask for a password, or fingerprint if applicable, at startup instead before unlocking the HDD.

ahh yeah... that would make sense. thought that seemed a little odd

Hello Ysbysb, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Is your drive D the drive that Windows 7 is installed on, or is it just another internal hard drive?

Either way, you have an option to where you want to save the "Recovery Key" file to. I would recommend to something like a USB flash drive.

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn