Use BitLocker to make an encoded virtual drive and make its items difficult to reach unapproved clients, as you would for a secret phrase-safeguarded envelope in Windows. The Microsoft working framework doesn’t offer an underlying capability to safeguard admittance to the items in an envelope.
A few elements permit you to scramble your information; however, don’t make Windows request a secret key when, for instance, you double-tap an envelope in Document Wayfarer. BitLocker is a framework device that permits you to safeguard whole drives, including establishing the working framework and outer stockpiling media.
for example, USB sticks. BitLocker To Go permits you to scramble the items in removable drives and requires a secret key for access. In another article, we have seen the fundamental distinctions between BitLocker, EFS, and Gadget Encryption in Windows.
Password Protects A Folder In Windows 11
Without outsider projects, utilizing BitLocker makes it feasible to make a solid virtual drive, an encoded holder that houses the client’s classified documents and which must be opened by composing a mysterious secret phrase. What you get is equivalent to an envelope with a secret key open from any document wayfarer window, the working framework, and the introduced applications.
To safeguard an envelope with a secret key in Windows 11, you can apply a basic method that initially includes making a virtual drive. To make a virtual drive, press Windows+X, pick Circle The executives, Activity, and Make VHD Record. In the Make and associate virtual hard circle exchange box, select the VHDX choice, click the Peruse button, and show the envelope where you maintain that the virtual drive should be made.
In the model, we request making an 8GB holder, which will then be encoded and safeguarded with BitLocker. By picking Powerfully growing, the VHDX document’s size, albeit set to 8 GB as the most extreme worth, will steadily increase as the information is saved inside the virtual unit (8 GB of a room won’t be involved immediately).
After tapping the OK button, a new uninitialized plate of the predefined size is recorded in the Circle The main board window. By right-tapping on it, you should tap on the Introduce plate, then on alright in the accompanying window deciding on GPT ( contrasts among GPT and MBR ).
When the Unallocated Block appears, right-click on it, choose New simple volume, accept all the proposed settings, then let Windows assign a drive letter and finally format with the NTFS file system .
Once you click the Finish button, Windows will open the newly added virtual drive which will be empty. At this point, you can protect the newly created virtual drive as if it were a normal folder:
- Just type BitLocker in the search box of the operating system.
- Choose Manage BitLocker.
- Select the newly created drive.
- Click on Activate BitLocker.
In the BitLocker Drive Encryption window, check the User password to unlock the drive box and specify a sufficiently long and complex password. Windows, therefore, recommends creating a backup of the recovery key: you can choose from the various options offered. One of the alternatives is to store it within your Microsoft user account.
On the Specify the size of the drive location you want to encrypt screen, select the Encrypt only used disk space option and click Next. As for encryption mode, it is better to opt for Compatibility mode: if the virtual drive is copied or moved to other Windows devices, its content will remain readable and editable after entering the correct BitLocker password.
With a click on the Start encryption button, BitLocker will prepare the contents of the encrypted virtual drive and set the user-defined password. By copying or moving data to the BitLocker virtual drive with a corresponding drive letter, that information will automatically be protected.
By right-clicking on the unit’s name ( This PC window ) and clicking on Block, it is possible to make the contents of the virtual unit inaccessible, except by typing in the correct password.
In case Lock does not appear, restart the machine to lock the virtual drive with BitLocker or type the following at the command prompt (type cmd then choose Run as administrator ):manage-bde -lock E: -ForceDismount Instead of E: the drive letter associated with the virtual drive encrypted with BitLocker must be indicated.
How To Unlock Password Protected Drive
To get to the items in the BitLocker-safeguarded virtual drive, go to the way you recently saved the VHDX record and double-tap on it. The presence of the Can’t get to… Access Denied mistake is ordinary because the virtual drive is encoded with BitLocker, and Windows can’t get to it immediately.
To open the VHDX holder that replaces a secret phrase safeguarded envelope, go to the PC window and double tap on the drive letter. A shut yellow latch implies the BitLocker drive is locked right now. In BitLocker, Enter the secret key window to open this drive. You type the secret word you picked when you made the virtual drive, then, at that point, click Open.
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