What is a BitLocker?

BitLocker is a feature offered by Microsoft on several versions of windows. It allows you to encrypt your storage drive in order to protect it against unwanted changes (such as by a firmware level malware).

If you have one of the versions, listed below, on your device, then you are set to use Microsoft’s BitLocker.

Requirements

In order to use the BitLocker feature, you would need a device that has one of the following versions of Windows:

·         Windows Vista

·         Windows  7 Ultimate

·         Windows 7 Enterprise

·         Windows 8.1 Pro

·         Windows 8.1 Enterprise

·         Windows 10 Pro

After ensuring you have the right version of Windows, make sure the drive you want to encrypt has at least two partitions and a TPM (Trusted Platform Module).

TPM is a chip inside laptops or PC’s that authenticates your firmware, hardware and software. The advantage of having a TPM is that if an unauthorized change is detected by the TPM, your device will switch to restricted mode in order to stop any hacker. If you are unsure of whether your device contains a TPM chip or whether your storage drive has two or more partitions, there is no need to worry, BitLocker runs a system check to ensure your device has the required hardware and software or not.

If, unfortunately, it turns out that your device doesn’t have a TPM chip, there are other ways to use this feature, however it will require a bit of tinkering.

If your device does indeed check all the requirements, then setting up the bitlocker is no hassle whatsoever.