The World According to Mitch

Now here’s a great feature!  I have grumbled in the past that encrypting a drive with BitLocker is a slow process, and although I do it so rarely, I was reminded yesterday that decrypting is equally time-consuming.  I have a 500GB external drive that I need to decrypt because it is being repurposed, and because the data that I am leaving on it is not confidential.

The Problems:

• I started the VERY long process at 10pm last night, while I was working in my Server 2008R2 boot partition on my laptop (I love Windows 7, but I need Hyper-V!).
• Before the decryption was half done I would have to leave the hotel – turning off the laptop.
• Part of what I need to do today requires me to be in the Windows 7 boot partition on my laptop.

Fortunately as the drive decrypts you have the option to easily pause the operation, and I planned to do that before packing up the laptop.  My original plan was to work in Windows 7 in the cafe, at the airport, on the plane, and at home tonight… and when it was time to go to bed I would reboot into Windows Server 2008R2 and resume the decryption overnight.

I got to the airport lounge and plugged in the laptop, and after booting into Windows 7 I plugged in the wrong external drive – the one that I was in the process of decrypting.  How cool is this?  The BitLocker Drive Encryption window and continued the decryption from where it left off… no hiccoughs!  I can even access the data on it while it decrypts.

Another #WIN for #Windows7 and #BitLocker!