Windows 11, like its predecessor, contains simple choices to encrypt your system drive. With device encryption turned on in your PC’s system drive, your private knowledge is secure in case your laptop computer is misplaced or stolen. If Home windows determines that boot integrity has been compromised, it’s going to demand a restoration key (a 48-digit quantity, divided into eight teams of six numbers every) earlier than it unlocks the data.
As tens of millions of individuals found in the course of the CrowdStrike meltdown, Home windows can demand that restoration key whenever you least count on it. There are additionally a handful of situations that may throw you into the recovery-key zone with out warning. For this reason you need to make sure you at all times have prepared entry to the restoration key whenever you want it.
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For those who use the built-in Home windows machine encryption choice, Home windows robotically saves the encryption key to your Microsoft account. Go to https://microsoft.com/recoverykey and sign up together with your Microsoft account (private or enterprise) to entry that key from any machine. For those who desire a command line, open PowerShell and use this command to view particulars about encryption on the system drive, together with the restoration key:
(Get-BitLockerVolume -MountPoint C).KeyProtector
For those who’re operating Home windows 11 Professional, Home windows prompts you to save lots of the restoration key whenever you first activate BitLocker encryption. Home windows provides you three choices for saving a restoration key. It can save you the important thing to your Microsoft account (private or enterprise), save the important thing to a textual content file you save on a storage machine of your selecting, or ship that key to a printer and save the exhausting copy in a secure location. For those who’re the belt-and-suspenders kind, you are able to do all three.
Any time after that, it can save you a contemporary copy of the important thing by going to the Handle BitLocker Management Panel. Simply kind just a few letters of the phrase BitLocker within the search field to seek out it. Click on “Again up your restoration key” to open the dialog field proven right here:
The highest choice is the best: save the important thing to OneDrive and retrieve it any time by signing in together with your Microsoft account at https://microsoft.com/recoverykey. You need to use the browser in your cell phone if crucial. For a private Microsoft account, that shortcut goes on to the web page containing restoration keys. On a enterprise account, click on “Handle units” and increase the menu for the machine you are attempting to unlock to see a “View BitLocker keys” button.
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For those who desire an alternate cloud storage service, save the restoration key as a file (to a drive apart from the system drive) after which add it to the cloud manually.
And when you anticipate that you will be touring to a spot the place you possibly can’t rely on prepared entry to your Microsoft account, save the restoration key as a file in your cell phone, or print it out on a slip of paper and tuck it into your pockets.