The drive will also be locked - but not ejected - if you shut down your computer. This removes the virtual drive from the list of drives in My Computer and the Disk Management window, hiding it. Pick a password for the file and make sure you remember itif you forget, that file will be lost. When you’re done using the encrypted drive, you can right-click it in File Explorer or Windows Explorer and select Eject to lock the partition and eject the VHD file from your computer. Open the document in question and head to File > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password. ![]() Files you store on the drive will be encrypted and stored inside the VHD file. This should be almost instantaneous if you started with an empty drive. Go through the usual BitLocker setup process, setting a strong password to unlock the drive and creating a backup of your recovery key in case you’ll ever need it.Īvoid selecting an unlock method that requires a TPM - such as “Automatically unlock this drive on this computer” - or you won’t be able to access the encrypted VHD file on another computer unless you provide your recovery key.īitLocker will immediately encrypt the drive without any reboot necessary. RELATED: How to Set Up BitLocker Encryption on Windows You can right-click the new drive and select Turn on BitLocker to enable BitLocker for the drive. The VHD file you created will now appear as a new drive in File Explorer or Windows Explorer. Give your drive a meaningful name, like Encrypted VHD. The one option you might want to change is the Volume label option. Go through the wizard to create the partition with the NTFS file system and the maximum size - you can leave the default options selected. Right-click the Unallocated space on the drive in the Disk Management window and select New Simple Volume. Next, create a partition on the VHD file. If you’re using Windows 7 or would like to be able to mount and access the VHD file on Windows 7 systems, select MBR (Master Boot Record) instead. This is a newer type of partition scheme, but it’s more resilient to corruption because it stores multiple copies of the partition table on the disk. Select the GPT (GUID Partition Table) option if you’re using Windows 8 or 8.1. The disk image will appear as another disk in the Disk Management window - right-click it and select Initialize Disk. You can create a VHD file as small as 3 MB, but BitLocker won’t work unless it’s 64 MB or larger. Your container file must be at least 64 MB in size. This will take a few minutes, but it is possible. If you want to enlarge the VHD file later, you can use the expand vdisk command in diskpart and then enlarge the partition on it. ![]() You should probably use the default Fixed size option, as this will save time when writing files to the encrypted VHD file and reduce possible fragmentation. The file will be stored in the location you choose, and it will be as large as the size you enter here. Enter a desired size and location for the VHD file.
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