How To Encrypt USB Flash Drive In Windows 7 Using BitLocker

Windows 7 allows you to encrypt any drive to protect your files on that drive. It includes Operaring System Drive, external Hard disk drives as well as USB Flash drives. A feature called BitLocker in Windows 7 let’s you do that. Unlike Encrypting File System (EFS), which enables you to encrypt individual files, BitLocker encrypts entire drive. Once the drive is encrypted, a password is needed to open the drive on any PC. This is especially useful for your personal USB flash drives. How to encrypt your pen drive using BitLocker in Windows 7? We will explain how to encrypt drive for a USB Flash drive.

1. Plug-in the USB device to be encrypted. 2. Open Explorer and Right-click on the USB drive.

3. Select ‘Turn on Bitlocker…’ from the right-click context menu. 4. Set up the password and click ‘Next’.

5. Now BitLocker gives you an option to ‘Save the recovery key to a file’ or ‘Print the recovery key’. The first option saves the recovery key in the form of a file in your chosen location (which can later be opened in Notepad). The second option prints the encrypted key either as a pdf file or to a printer. These options will be useful to access the encrypted drive in case you forget the password. ‘Save the recovery key to a file’ saves a key file which can be used to access the drive. ‘Print the recovery key’ option prints a recovery key which can be keyed in to access the drive. Make sure you save either of these keys in a safe location.

6. After saving the key, click on ‘Next’ button to start the encryption process. 7. Windows 7 will now encrypt the drive. Allow the process to complete.

8. After the process is complete, you will now see a encryption icon on the drive as shown in the below image.

So next time you plug-in the USB device, Windows will ask for the password to open.

How to unlock the encrypted drive in case you forgot the password?

In the step 5, a recovery key file or printed recovery file is created. This can be used for unlocking the encrypted drive in case you forgot the password. Use either of these options. In the below image, we have shown unlocking the drive using printed Bitlocker recovery key.

Bitlocker will now report that the drive is unlocked temporarily and you should change the password by using ‘Manage Bitlocker’.

Select the desired option and proceed further.