How to Encrypt A Pen Drive and Manage the Encrypted USB?

If a USB drive with sensitive information is lost or stolen, anyone can access its contents if it isn’t protected. This can lead to serious problems like data breaches or misuse of confidential files. By enabling BitLocker, the data on the drive is encrypted and requires a password or recovery key to unlock. Even if the USB falls into the wrong hands, the information stays secure. This simple step ensures sensitive data is protected, no matter what happens to the drive.

How to encrypt an USB in Windows Pro, Enterprise, and Education?

To enable BitLocker for a USB drive on Windows computers, you can follow the instructions provided below. Please note that BitLocker Encryption (or BitLocker To Go) is available only in Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions of Windows 11/10. If you are the Windows Home user who want to encrypt USB drive, kindly please move to the next part. Before proceeding, ensure you are log in with an administrator account and verify that the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) on your system is properly set up. These steps will help you securely encrypt your USB drive.

Step 1. Navigate to "Start" > "Settings" > "Storage" > "Advanced storage settings" > "Disks & volumes".

Step 2. Select the USB flash drive with the volume to encrypt. Then, choose the volume and click "Properties".

Step 3. Click "Turn on BitLocker".

Step 4. Choose your preferred USB drive unlocking method: via password or smart card. Here we select a password option, enter it twice, and click "Next" to continue.

Step 5. Choose a preferred way to save the Windows 11 Bitlocker recovery key: Microsoft account, a file, or print the recovery key. Click "Next" to continue.

Step 6. Choose a preferred encryption way: "Encrypt used disk space only" or "Encrypt entire drive". Here we select "Encrypt used disk space". Click "Next" to continue.

Step 7. Choose a preferred encryption mode: "New encryption mode" or "Compatible mode". Here we select "Compatible mode". Click "Next" to continue.

Step 8. Read the confirmation notes. Click "Start encrypting" to download Bitlocker in Windows 11.

Once the download completed, you have turned the BitLocker on and encrypted the USB drive in Windows 11 and 10 successfully.

How to manage encrypted USB on Windows 11 and 10?

If you are looking for a solution to enable, disable, or manage the USB BitLocker drive in any edition of Windows, including the Home edition, AOMEI Partition Assistant is a great option. This partition manager allows you to easily and quickly manage BitLocker encryption on Windows 11/10/8/7. To get started, you can download the demo version of this software and explore how it works.

1. How to encrypt a USB drive in Windows Home?

Step1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click the "Tools" main tab and select "BitLocker".

Step 2. All drives on the system will be displayed, including operating system drives, fixed data drives, and removable drives. Please find the partition you would like to encrypt BitLocker and click the "Turn on BitLocker" option. (Here, we take the drive D: as an example.)

Tip: It only supports encrypting NTFS partitions. Other partition file systems, for example, FAT or FAT32 cannot be encrypted.

Step 3. Please set and confirm a password to encrypt the drive and click "Next".

Step 4. Select a way to back up your recovery key. You can either select "Save to a file" or "Print the recovery key".

Step 5. If you select "Save to a file", please choose a location on your PC to save the recovery key.

Then, please click the "Next" button to start the encryption process.

Step 5. The encryption process might take time to encrypt the drive. Before the process is finished, please do not terminate the program, remove the drive, or turn off the power. Once the encryption process is finished, please click "Completed". Finally, the drive is BitLocker encrypted.

2. How to remove BitLocker from USB drive?

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click the "Tools" main tab and select "BitLocker".

Step 2. Find the encrypted drive you would like to decrypt and click the option "Turn off BitLocker".

Step 3. There are still 2 ways available to decrypt the drive: Use password to decrypt the drive and Use recovery key to decrypt the drive. Please select either way as per your need.

If you select "Use a password to decrypt the drive", please enter the right password and then click the "Decrypt" button.

If you select "Use a recovery key to decrypt the drive", please enter the recovery key saved in the TXT file or printed when you encrypted the drive, and then click the "Decrypt" button.

Step 4. Then, the decryption process will start and it might take time to decrypt the drive. Before the process is finished, please do not terminate the program, remove the drive, or turn off the power.

Step 5. Once the decryption process is finished, please click "Completed". Finally, the BitLocker on the drive is decrypted.

3. How to clone encrypted USB flash drive?

To clone a BitLocker-encrypted USB drive in Windows computers, AOMEI Partition Assistant is also an excellent choice. This reliable and versatile cloning software is highly regarded by users for its ability to address various cloning challenges, including copying disks with bad sectors.

With its Sector-by-Sector Clone method, the software allows you to clone a BitLocker-encrypted drive without unlocking it. Since this method copies all sectors, including unused ones, the destination disk must have a capacity equal to or greater than that of the source disk.

This software is compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7. For Windows Server versions such as 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012 (R2), AOMEI Partition Assistant Server is recommended.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, click "Clone" in the main interface and select "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the destination disk to store the data on the source disk, and then click "Next".

Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to “Sector to Sector clone”, and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to improve the reading and writing speed of SSD if the target disk is an SSD drive.

Step 5. At last, click "Apply" and "Proceed" in the main interface to start cloning the hard drive.

4. How to format encrypted USB flash drive?

AOMEI Partition Assistant offers a convenient way to format BitLocker-encrypted hard drives, USB flash drives, and SD cards to various file systems, including FAT32, NTFS, FAT, and more. Designed with user-friendliness in mind, this software caters to Windows users of all experience levels, making it an excellent choice for managing partitions on storage devices efficiently and effectively.

Step 1. Install and launch the program. Right-click the BitLocker encrypted drive and choose Format Partition.

Step 2. Select the file system for the encrypted drive.

Step 3. Click Apply to format a BitLocker encrypted drive without a key.

Then restart your computer, and you will find the BitLocker has been removed.

Conclusion

Managing BitLocker-encrypted USB drives on Windows computers can be a straightforward and efficient process with the right tools and guidance. Whether you need to encrypt, decrypt, clone, or format a drive, BitLocker and third-party software like AOMEI Partition Assistant provide reliable solutions. These tools not only enhance data security but also offer flexibility for users across various Windows editions, including Home versions. By following the provided steps, you can securely protect and manage your USB drives or other storage devices.