Choose how much of your drive to encrypt.

Save the file with the suggested file name (do not rename) It is recommended to save the key to a file e.g. The key is used if you forget the password in the future.

You will be asked how you want to backup your recovery key.

Enter the password you would like to use.Select ‘use a password to unlock the drive’

The next screen asks how you want to be able to unlock the drive.You will see a 'starting BitLocker' message.Right click, and choose turn BitLocker on Insert the USB storage device into a University Windows computer.It can take anything from a minute to several hours You cannot turn the computer off or remove the memory stick while it is encryption. The amount of time the USB takes to encrypt will depend on the size of the drive and the data already on it.When the USB has been encrypted, it cannot be used on a Mac.These instructions are for encrypting a USB storage device on a Windows computer, for use on a Windows computer.Personally, I hate EFS, but that's my own personal feeling.įeel free to let me know if you have further questions. The encryption will then complete very rapidly.Īs an alternative, if you don't need to encrypt the entire drive, you could make use of EFS (Encrypting File System) to just encrypt specific folders and / or files. Note that the slower your flash drive or HD is, the longer this will take.Īlso, if you start with a drive that has no data or very little data on it, I suggest choosing the option to encrypt the used space only when you configure BitLocker. However, you can pause encryption or even shutdown / reboot your system and encryption will continue when the system is restarted.

If your drives have a lot of data on them, it may take a long time to encrypt. If you specifically want BitLocker, you could upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. Note: I have no experience with this product so I can't make any comment on how well it functions. VeraCrypt - Free Open source disk encryption with strong security for the Paranoid If you want a free product, you could consider VeraCrypt:

Encrypt flash drive windows 10