How to Enable BitLocker on Windows 11/10 Home Safely?

iBoysoft DiskGeeker for Windows

iBoysoft DiskGeeker for Windows is a trusted utility, well-designed to enable BitLocker Drive Encrytion in your Windows 11 Home, as well as Windows 10/8/7 Home. Thus, you can hassle-free BitLocker encrypt your NTFS, exFAT and FAT32 drives regardless of native system drive or external HDD/SSD/USB drives.  

Beyond that, this feature-rich disk management toolkit also helps you download Windows 11 Pro/10 Pro images for upgrades, create Windows 11/10 Pro boot disk, clone OS disk to BitLocker-encrypted disk, clone partitions to BitLocker ones, resize partitions, wipe disks to protect file data leakage, and clean up system junks to free up disk space.

Step 1: Download iBoysoft DiskGeeker for Windows on your PC and install the app.

Step 2: Launch this Windows disk manager application. 

Step 3: Click “Encrypt partition" in the BitLocker zone. 

Step 4: Choose the drive that you want to encrypt with BitLocker from the drive list. 

Step 5: Click Next, and enter the password to password-protect external hard drive on Windows and Mac. Re-enter your password and tap Next.

Step 6: Save the recovery key as a backup in case you ever forget your password and click Next.

Step 7: Activate BitLocker encryption on the drive you selected in Windows 11/10 Home.

Upgrade Your PC to Windows 11/10 Professional

When your needs include encrypting the system drive, managing enterprise policies, or using full BitLocker features, upgrading to Pro is the way to go.

Upgrading to Pro gives you access to the feature. Before that, back up your significant file data in advance to avoid data loss. In addition, $99 is a pretty steep price to pay. 

Certainly, if you don't have the upgrade budget, you can turn to iBoysoft DiskGeeker for Windows (mentioned before), which enables you to free download Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Pro images, and create a Windows 11 Pro bootable installer without further cost.

After upgrading to Windows 11 Pro, you can then transfer your files to the Windows 11 Pro platform, and BitLocker encrypt your drives with a password.

Turn on Device Encryption in Windows 11/10 Home

The Device Encryption feature in Windows 11/10 Home also lets you protect your files. It's similar to BitLocker in as much as it lets you protect your data from access by unauthorized individuals but there are some differences between the two features.

The main difference is that almost all versions of Windows 11/10 (Home, Pro, Education, and Enterprise) support Device Encryption whereas only Pro, Education, and Enterprise editions offer the full BitLocker Drive Encryption. 

Device Encryption works on a broader range of devices, including some Windows Home PCs. Full BitLocker Drive Encryption, in contrast, is intended for more advanced manual management scenarios.

To use the Device Encryption feature in Windows 11/10 Home, there are several requirements:

1. Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0) has to be enabled.

2. You need a PC with a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) type of firmware.

3. Enable Secure Boot state.

4. Your Windows 11 PC supports Modern Standby.

5. Your system disk must be GUID partition map scheme.

6. Log in with your Microsoft account instead of local account.

To turn on Device Encryption on your drive, use the following steps:

Step 1: Open Settings in Windows by clicking on Start and then the "gear" icon

Step 2: Click on Update & Security.

Step 3: Click on the Device encryption item. If you don't see Device encryption in the Update & Security section of Settings, it most likely means your computer doesn't support one of the two requirements.

Step 4: In the "Devices encryption" section of Settings, click the button labeled "Turn on" to activate it

Read: How to turn off BitLocker encryption in Windows 11/10

Encrypt Your Drive on Another Computer Running Windows 11/10 Pro

Windows 11/10 Home doesn't provide the ability to encrypt your drives with BitLocker, but it can unlock and access drives that have already been encrypted. If you connect your drive to a computer running Windows 11/10 Professional, Enterprise, or Education, you can turn on BitLocker and then reconnect it to your Windows 11/10 Home machine.

How to Unlock a BitLocker-Encrypted Drive in Windows 11/10 Home

Step 1: Open "This PC" (or My Computer) and right-click on the BitLocker encrypted drive in the list. You can also do the same thing in the Disk Management app.

Step 2: Click Unlock on the menu that appears when you right-click.

Step 3: Enter the password that you created when you encrypted the drive on that PC.

If you've forgotten or don't have the password but have the recovery key that you saved during the encryption process, click on "More options" then "Enter recovery key".

Enter the 48-digit BitLocker recovery key to unlock the BitLocker encrypted drive.

If You Want to Use BitLocker, Windows 11/10 Home Isn't Out of the Question 

As you can see, using BitLocker in Windows 11/10 Home is possible even though Microsoft doesn't support it directly. To BitLocker-encrypt drives (internal or external) in Windows 11 Home/10 Home, iBoysoft DiskGeeker for Windows is a reliable yet strong performer. 

If you lost the data from BitLocker encrypted drive by a mistake, iBoysoft Data Recovery is a professional data recovery software that can help you out of this trouble.

To get BitLocker drive full read-write access on Mac, iBoysoft BitLocker for Mac is a solid option with both virtual and physical mounting supported.

FAQs about Windows 11 Home BitLocker