Bitlocker implications when installing a larger drive

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StargateCOlorado
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 4:30 pm
Location: Colorado

Bitlocker implications when installing a larger drive

Post by StargateCOlorado »

I have a new desktop that came with a HDD and plan to swap it out for a larger SSD. Win10 Pro now comes with Bitlocker on. I have IFW installed and doing backups. So I have two questions:

1. Will it make life easier if I just turn off Bitlocker before doing the restore?

2. Since some of the backups have already occurred, if I turn off Bitlocker, should I force a full backup before doing the restore or will IFW automatically force a full backup when it detects Bitlocker has been turned off?

--Ernie
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1643
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Bitlocker implications when installing a larger drive

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

If your backup was taken in Windows using VSS and was of the entire drive then you should be able to use that easily. However, if you want to decrypt the drive and take a new backup with BitLocker out of the picture, that's fine too -- will just take a bit longer. Of course, if you need to create a new entire drive backup anyway, then the extra time would only be for decrypting.

Assuming you restore an image that was taken using VSS, it would have to be re-encrypted after restoring if you want it. I assume you would do something along the lines of removing the HDD, installing the SSD, and then restoring your image to the SSD. For the restore operation, it won't matter if the removed HDD had BitLocker enabled on it or not.
StargateCOlorado
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 4:30 pm
Location: Colorado

Re: Bitlocker implications when installing a larger drive

Post by StargateCOlorado »

Paul,

My plan is to turn off BitLocker permanently since the SSD does its' own encryption. I'm guessing the best path for me is to (1) turn off BitLocker [already done], (2) capture a fresh full backup of the C: drive and (3) restore to SSD via CD, correct? The KISS method... :)

By the way, I use PHYLOCK exclusively. I used to allow the use of VSS, but some time back Microsoft broke VSS and it took them a couple of months to fix it. After that, I've stayed with PHYLOCK since it seems to always work.

Just out of curiosity, does IFW force a full backup if it sees a change in BitLocker status? I can't imagine how a backup containing incrementals with mixed BitLocker states would work. But, hey, maybe the program is more flexible than I realize. Everything I've seen over the years says IFW is an extremely robust package.

--Ernie
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1643
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Bitlocker implications when installing a larger drive

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

StargateCOlorado wrote:
> My plan is to turn off BitLocker permanently since the SSD does its' own
> encryption. I'm guessing the best path for me is to (1) turn off BitLocker
> [already done], (2) capture a fresh full backup of the C: drive and (3)
> restore to SSD via CD, correct? The KISS method... :)

Sounds good. A full drive backup is normally what you would want. Then restore with the "Scale to Fit" option.

> By the way, I use PHYLOCK exclusively. I used to allow the use of VSS, but
> some time back Microsoft broke VSS and it took them a couple of months to
> fix it. After that, I've stayed with PHYLOCK since it seems to always
> work.

If you used PHYLock then the partition would have been backed up in the encrypted state. You would need to create a new full backup.
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