On Windows 10, BitLocker is a security feature that allows you to encrypt your entire system drive (and external storage) to protect your documents, pictures, music, videos, and other files from unauthorized access if your device is stolen or lost.
While Bit Locker Drive Encoding is a useful feature(especially for mobile devices, such as laptops and tablets), it has a downside. If you enable encryption on the system drive, perform a unified Extended Software Interface (UEFI) update or update the basic input/output system (BIOS), change the hardware, or upgrade. In the new version of Windows 10, you may experience problems, such as entering a recovery key during boot, because BitLocker will think that the device is being tampered with.
However, you can prevent problems while using encryption by pausing BitLocker on the system drive to perform firmware, hardware successfully, orWindows 10updatesin at least three different ways, using Control Panel, PowerShell, and Command Prompt.
In this Windows 10 guide, we will guide you through the steps to suspend (and continue) BitLocker on your device to prevent crashes during system modifications.
How to suspend BitLocker using Control Panel
To suspend BitLocker using Control Panel on Windows 10, use these steps:
- OpenControl Panel.
- Click System and Security.
- Click BitLocker Drive Encryption.
- Click the BitLocker Drive Encryption option.
- Click the yes button.
Once you complete these steps, BitLocker protection will be temporarily disabled without decrypting your data so you can perform firmware and system updates without a crash.
Using the suspension failed to decode the data. Instead, the option to make the BitLocker key available to anyone in exact text and the additional data you create will remain encrypted on the drive. When you finish making the system change, you can always continue encrypting to protect your files.
Continue using BitLocker with Control Panel.
To continue to protect BitLocker on your device, use the following steps:
- Open Control Panel.
- Click System and Security.
- Click BitLocker Drive Encryption.
- Click the Resume protection option.
Additionally, restarting your computer will automatically restore BitLocker protection as well.
How to suspend BitLocker using PowerShell
If you are more comfortable using commands or you are building an automated script, you can use PowerShell to suspend BitLocker on Windows 10 with these steps:
- Open Start.
- Search for PowerShell, right-click on the top result, and select the option Run as administrator.
- Type the following command to pause BitLocker and press Enter:
Suspend-BitLocker -MountPoint “C:” -RebootCount 0
In the command,-RebootCount allows you to specify the number of times your computer can reboot before BitLocker automatically re-enables. You can use values from 0 to 15, while 0 suspends BitLocker until you continue to protect manually.
After you complete the steps, Windows 10 will disable BitLocker indefinitely unless you specify a reboot count option, in which case protection will re-enable automatically after the number of reboots you have selected.
Continue using BitLocker with PowerShell.
After applying a new firmware update or Windows 10 version, you can restore BitLocker at any time with PowerShell using the following steps:
- Open Start.
- Search for PowerShell, right-click on the top result, and select the option Run as administrator.
- Enter the following command to continue BitLocker and press Enter:
Resume-BitLocker -MountPoint "C:"
After you complete the steps, encryption protection will activate on your device.
How to suspend BitLocker using Command Prompt
Alternatively, you can also use Command Prompt to disable BitLocker on Windows 10 with the following steps temporarily:
- Open Start.
- Search for Command Prompt, right-click on the top result and select the option Run as administrator.
- Type the following command to locate the drive you want to suspend BitLocker and press Enter:
Manage-bde –Protectors –Disable C: -RebootCount 0
In the command, -RebootCount allows you to specify how many times your computer can restart before BitLocker automatically re-enables. You can use values from 0 to 15, while 0 suspends BitLocker until you continue to protect manually.
When you complete these steps, your computer will temporarily have no encryption protection to make the system changes.
Continue BitLocker using Command Prompt.
After applying the system changes, you can re-enable BitLocker protection with the Command Prompt with these steps:
- OpenStart.
- Search for Command Prompt, right-click on the top result and select the Command Prompt option
- Enter the following command to continue BitLocker and press Enter:
Manage-bde –Protectors -Enable C:
After you complete the steps, BitLocker will continue to keep the system drive fully encrypted.
While we show you many ways to suspend BitLocker on Windows 10, the command options using PowerShell and the Command Prompt are the only methods that allow you to pause encryption indefinitely.
This guide also focuses on Windows 10, but these instructions will also work on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.