BitLocker is not Available in Windows 10-What to Do

By Sophia | Last Updated January 03, 2024

"I'm going to use BitLocker to encrypt my drive on Windows 10. But only to find that BitLocker is not available in Windows 10 and I cannot enable it. I do not know what's wrong? How can I do to use BitLocker in Windows 10?"

When you want to set hard drive password in Windows 10, but only to find that BitLocker is missing from Control Panel, what to do? As a matter of fact, there can be many reasons that cause BitLocker unavailable in your Windows 10 computer. In this article, you can find the answers and then use BitLocker smoothly.

Overview:

Solution 1—Upgrade Your Windows 10 Edition
Solution 2—Enable BitLocker on Your Computer without TPM
Solution 3 – Exit Windows 10 Safe Mode
Solution 4—Change the Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk
External Tips—Alternative Tool to Turn on BitLocker in Windows 10

BitLocker is not available in Windows 10

Solution 1—Upgrade Your Windows 10 Edition

As is known to all, BitLocker is available on Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions of Windows 10. Therefore, if you are using Windows Home edition, you cannot start BitLocker to encrypt the drive. What you need to do is to upgrade the Windows 10 to Professional or above editions. Besides, you can check the Windows edition by pressing Windows and Pause key on the keyboard.

check Windows edition

Solution 2—Enable BitLocker on Your Computer without TPM

TPM—Trusted Platform Module, is required for BitLocker disk encryption. It is always on your motherboard. When the computer is without a compatible TPM, you will get into trouble when starting BitLocker. To find whether there is compatible TPM on your computer motherboard, you can press Windows and R key on the keyboard to get the Run dialog box, then enter tpm.msc and press Enter key. After that, it will tell you the result.

check compatible TPM

If your Windows 10 does not have a compatible TPM and you want to use the BitLocker encryption, you can use BitLocker without TPM, which is less secure. To do that, you just need to enable the option—Allow BitLocker without a Compatible TPM.

Solution 3 – Exit Windows 10 Safe Mode

When you boot the computer in safe mode, BitLocker is not available and even the BitLocker encrypted drive is not accessible. In this situation, you need to exit Windows safe mode and boot the Windows 10 normally.

Solution 4—Change the Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk

BitLocker cannot work on dynamic disk. So if you right click the dynamic volume, there will not be the Turn on BitLocker option. You can check the disk is a basic disk or dynamic disk in Disk Management.

check dynamic disk or not

If you want to turn on BitLocker on the dynamic volume, you can convert it to basic disk. It cannot be finished directly. You can choose to format the dynamic disk and then make it a new basic disk with data loss. Or you can use third-party tool to finish the conversion without data loss.

External Tips—Alternative Tool to Turn on BitLocker in Windows 10

If there is compatible TPM in your computer motherboard, is it possible to turn on BitLocker on Windows 10 Home? Yes, you can download BitLocker encryption software—iSunshare Bitlocker Genius for Windows to enable BitLocker encryption for a drive on Windows 10 Home.

With iSunshare BitLocker Genius, you can turn on or off BitLocker on your computer volume. Besides, you can lock and unlock the BitLocker encrypted drive without restart the computer. Also, it is convenient for you to encrypt only the used space in the disk. You can also set the computer to shut down automatically after finishing the encryption or decryption. All in all, iSunshare BitLocker Genius is a useful tool to manage BitLocker encryption.

turn on BitLocker using iSunshare BitLocker Genius for Windows