If you bought a personal Windows computer in the last year, your hard disk most likely has been encrypted by Microsoft’s Bit-Locker.

If your hard drive icon has a padlock on it, your information is encrypted and safe from people who want to steal your data.

If you don’t have the code to unlock your hard drive, refer to the following steps to locate it:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/finding-your-bitlocker-recovery-key-in-windows-6b71ad27-0b89-ea08-f143-056f5ab347d6

Keep this code safe and secure, either stored in cloud storage or a notebook in a secure area. Do not keep it on the drive as you could need that code to unlock it if Windows throws an error on boot up.

If you have questions or need assistance with this process, contact ITS support via service.drake.edu/its.

Gillian Mohn, ITS