Win 7 under the use of flash drive "native" encryption function

I believe many of my friends will choose a small and exquisite flash drive as a removable storage device, but if it is lost, I am afraid may cause data loss, but use a third party The encryption software is quite troublesome. After all, installation and registration are not easy. In fact, if you have already started Windows 7, you can use BitLocker to add "native" encryption to your flash drive, and the operation is quite simple.

Step by step to quickly encrypt the flash drive

In fact, as early as the Windows Vista era, the operating system has provided a security function called BitLocker, but only in the enterprise version and the flagship version. application. Windows 7's BitLocker is more powerful, and users don't need to make any additional settings (such as modifying Group Policy). Just log in to the system as an administrator, connect the encrypted flash drive to the computer correctly, open the "Computer" window, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Right click on the flash drive from the shortcut menu Select "Enable BitLocker", and the "BitLocker Drive Encryption" wizard will pop up. Please select the unlock mode as needed. It is recommended to select "Use password to unlock the drive", enter the password twice in succession, and click the "Next" button to continue.

Step 2: You can choose to save the recovery key to a file (so you don't forget it), or you can print the recovery key. If you choose the former, we will get a file name similar to "BitLocker recovery password." The text file of key 0B374660-8D1D-4B3F-B96E-6CF027DDA9E5.txt", click the "Next" button to continue.

Step 3: After entering the next window, click the “Enable Encryption” button, Windows 7 will officially start encrypting the flash drive. The encryption time depends mainly on the capacity and file capacity of the flash drive. 1) Wait patiently for a moment to complete the encryption.

Keep the password decrypted and use the flash drive

Now, we will find that the drive letter of the encrypted flash drive device has changed a bit, and it will become a lock icon. This means that the files on the flash drive have been successfully encrypted and the data is secured.

When needed, we need to double-click the drive letter. A dialog box will pop up. Enter the correct unlock password in the "Type a password to unlock this drive" text box, click "Unlock" in the lower right corner. Button, then you can perform normal file read and write operations. If you don't want to enter your password every time you use an encrypted flash drive, you can check the "Automatically unlock on this computer from now on" checkbox when entering your password. You can use this encrypted directly on this computer later. Flash drive, of course, if you use it on other computers, you still need to enter the correct password.

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows XP, you can also use the flash drive encrypted in Windows 7. The flash drive letter will also have a lock icon, but you need to use it right each time. Click "BitLocker To Go Reader" and enter the correct password to unlock. However, in a Windows Vista or Windows XP system, a flash disk that has been processed by "BitLocker" under Windows 7 can only perform limited operations such as viewing and copying after decryption (see Figure 2), and cannot perform writing. Operation, this is mainly due to security reasons.
Turn off encryption function

If you need to cancel the encryption protection of BitLocker, you must still enter the Windows 7 operating system, enter the control panel, select "System and Security→BitLocker Drive Encryption", and find the encryption that has been encrypted by BitLocker. Flash drive, click the "Turn off BitLocker" button on the right (Figure 3), click the "Decrypt Drive" button, then follow the prompts to turn off the encryption function, interested friends can try.