Last Updated: January 11, 2021 | Reading Time: 3 minutes
Yes, You need to protect your personal or confidential data such as family photos, personal document files, company documents, etc. just in case if you lost your device or stolen, the data will be safe. In this article, I will show you how to encrypt the external disk in Windows 10.
There are many methods and software that offer this feature, but do you know that Windows 10 has its own disk-encryption software?
BitLocker
BitLocker built-in inside Windows 10 Professional, not available for Windows 10 Home edition. To use it is super easy. I plugged in my external disk in USB 3 port, and walk through the steps below:
1. Open Windows Explorer, right-click on the disk you want to encrypt and select BitLocker On.
2. On the next screen, select use a password to unlock the drive, add your password, and click next.
3. Next screen, you’ll prompt to backup recovery key. If you have a Microsoft account, I suggest to use this option and click next. Wait for the saving process to Microsoft account finished.
4. On “Choose how much of your drive to encrypt” choose “Encrypt used disk space only” If your drive is new or empty. Or choose the “Encrypt entire drive” if you already have files in the disk.
5. The next screen, “Select which encryption mode to use,” because my target is an external disk, so I choose the “Compatible mode.”
6. On “Are you ready to encrypt this drive?” click “Start encrypting” to start.
7. The encryption process will take a few minutes. Do not remove the disk while the encryption still on process.
8. The encryption is done.
Next time you plug in this drive in the same or different computer, you will be prompted a password to access this drive.
BitLocker Manager
If you have many drives that are encrypted in your PC, you can manage them by using the “Manage BitLocker”, using this manager, you can change password, turn off the encryption, encrypt a new one, or download a backup key.
That’s it, it’s super easy isn’t it?