What is the difference between suspending protection and decrypting the drive

Change the state to Not configured or Disabled , and press OK to save changes and exit. Restart your PC, and your drive should no longer be encrypted. Unfortunately, if you're using Windows 10 Home, it won't have Group Policy enabled by default. However, there is a way to access the group policy on Windows 10 Home. If you're more technically inclined and prefer to use command lines, you can use Command Prompt or PowerShell discussed next to disable BitLocker.

Plus, it also saves you some time. If you have BitLocker encryption turned on for multiple drives, skip to the next method to disable BitLocker for all of them at once. Execute the following command:.

Search for powershell in the Start Menu , right-click on PowerShell , and select Run as administrator to run PowerShell with administrative privileges. However, if you've turned on BitLocker encryption for multiple drives, you may want to execute the following commands:. At least one of the methods we discussed so far should work. Double-click on the service and change the Startup type to Disabled. Press OK to save the changes and exit.

While leaving BitLocker enabled can certainly give you a hard time if you're attempting one of these tasks, there's an alternative to disabling BitLocker; you can suspend it. Otherwise, the update will erase all the keys stored on the TPM. Unlike when you disable BitLocker, suspending it doesn't decrypt the data on your drives. Plus, any additional data you add to the drive during the suspension is still encrypted.

So once you've completed making changes to your PC, you can go back to the Control Panel and resume encryption.

Type manage bitlocker in the Start Menu and open the best match in the search results. If you want to turn off Bitlocker on a fixed data drive such as an internal hard drive or a removable data drive such as an external hard drive or a USB flash drive , you must decrypt the drive.

Decrypting an operating system drive means that BitLocker protection is removed from the computer, which can be time-consuming. Have a question? Click here. Ask Question. Or try our advanced search. To temporarily suspend BitLocker or decrypt the drive 1. Answered 11 years ago.

Privacy policy. Skip to main content. This browser is no longer supported. Download Microsoft Edge More info. Contents Exit focus mode. Decrypt completely removes BitLocker protection and fully decrypts the drive. Manual or third-party updates to secure boot databases only if BitLocker uses Secure Boot for integrity validation. You can check if BitLocker uses Secure Boot for integrity validation with manage-bde -protectors -get C: and see if "Uses Secure Boot for integrity validation" is reported.