USB drives, external HDDs, and memory cards—remains the go-to for transferring and backing up data. But these devices are also among the easies ...

BitLocker not only encrypts the Windows drive but also external drives. Encrypting a removable drive, like a USB stick, is quicker and easier than encrypting the main Windows drive.

This post will show you how to Turn On or Off BitLocker to encrypt or decrypt fixed and removable data drives in Windows 11/10.

Without a boot key — either a manually entered PIN, a USB flash drive or a secure module on the PC itself — everything on a BitLocker-encrypted drive is indistinguishable from random data.

To encrypt a USB drive using BitLocker on Windows: Plug your flash drive into a USB port of your computer. Press Windows + E to open File Explorer.