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Win10 auto creates a bitlocker partition on new and factory installs

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:23 pm
by FlyingPenguin
Looks like something they added after 1809. I just bought a NUC with factory 1903 installed, and when I tried to make an Acronis image, I found that the boot partition was a Bitlocker partition and Acronis wouldn't touch it without a password.

This threw me off since I didn't have a password. I had just setup this PC as a local user with no password. I also don't need the drive encrypted on this PC.

I did a little research and this is apparently the default now IF you PC/mobo has a compatible TPM chip (which the NUC does).

In actuality Bitlocker wasn't yet activated. So what I had to do was this:

- Go to "Manage Bitlocker" in Windows Settings
- For the C drive, click "Activate Bitlocker".
- This then gave me an option to save or print the bitlocker key (you don't need it because you're about to disable it, but might want to just in case something goes wrong)
- Bitlocker will then activate and fully complete the encryption of the drive (only takes a few seconds because it's mostly done already)
- Then go back into the Manage Bitlocker control panel and DISABLE Bitlocker for drive C. It'll ask to confirm, and then it'll decrypt the drive in the background. It did not ask me for the Bitlocker key because, I guess, I was already logged in.

After than the boot partition will show up as a plain NTSF or GPT (depending on the size) and Acronis or any other imaging software will work just fine on it.