Disk Copy - How to Handle BitLocker Encrypted Partition

[Muad'Dib]

Somewhat related to my previous post (making copy of 256 GB SSD boot drive to 1 TB SSD, increasing size of drive C partition, then replacing the 256 GB SSD with the 1 TB SSD):

If I use IFW's Copy function, and my drive C is encrypted with BitLocker, what's the most straightforward way to make the copy, and have the new drive C also encrypted? Ideally, I'd like to be able to run IFW Copy directly from the original boot drive, WITHOUT having to boot from an external device (for example, using a USB stick running IFL), but if using an external boot device greatly simplifies things, then I'm willing to do it.

I'm currently using VSS when making backups, so I assume (unless I change the settings) that this will also apply when running Copy from IFW?

I looked through the knowledge-base articles, but I couldn't find anything that explicitly discusses Copy with BitLocker, only Backup (and Restore), so I want to make sure I do this as efficiently as possible.

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

You're not going to be able to do it how you want when BitLocker is being used. If you want to have the copy encrypted, you would need to boot to TBWinRE, IFL, etc. (or use PHYLock in Windows) and do a copy of the entire drive to the new drive (don't use any scaling options). The Windows partition will still be the same size and you'll then need to extend it in Windows (assuming there's unallocated space located immediately after it). Keep in mind that this will be copying the encrypted partition so it will be whatever size the Windows partition is -- not just used space (e.g. copy 250GB instead of 56GB used space).

Doing a copy in Windows using VSS won't scale either and it also won't be encrypted. You would need to resize/extend the partition and enable BitLocker after booting to it (make sure to disconnect the source drive first).

Otherwise, you can turn off BitLocker (don't suspend it), do the copy with scaling, and then enable BitLocker after booting the new drive (make sure to disconnect the source drive first). Or you could create a backup of the entire drive using VSS and then restore that using scaling (this doesn't require turning off BitLocker).