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The title is the question.
I am now enctypting a 107 GB partition and it takes ages. I am dying to know what would happen if the encryption was stopped by, let's say, a thermal shutdown or if the power went off?
I'd rather not try it myself, so I am asking you. (I hope it did not happen to you!)
And, if this happens, how can I get it fixed?
Vercas
Posted 2010-12-21T18:04:49.410
Reputation: 532
16
I found this: BitLocker Drive Encryption in Windows 7: Frequently Asked Questions
According to Microsoft TechNet, you would be just fine.
E W
Posted 2010-12-21T18:04:49.410
Reputation: 176
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It would partially corrupt your disk, nothing less, nothing more. It's important to defer the process before shutting down/restarting, gracefully or otherwise, as otherwise quite literally half your disk will be encrypted, and half won't. That's not a good situation to recover from, especially since it will be likely encrypting on the fly whilst it encrypts the partition.
Matthieu Cartier
Posted 2010-12-21T18:04:49.410
Reputation: 3 422
Yes, I've figured that out. But any more specific effects? F.E. Will the OS boot? Can I use a recovery CD? – Vercas – 2010-12-21T18:09:27.110
1I've not tried it myself (for obvious reasons), but as far as I would imagine: the OS will not boot, a recovery CD will not help, you may be able to recover some data, but it would all be from the unencrypted part. – Matthieu Cartier – 2010-12-21T18:15:20.190
Good thing that I have an unencrypted partition. – Vercas – 2010-12-21T18:16:01.207
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This happened to me. I hard-reset the computer half way through decrypting, and when Windows came back up, it tried to resume decryption. It failed almost immediately with an error saying to run CHKDSK /R. After running that, the BitLocker decryption resumed and completed, without me even needing to restart the computer. There was no data loss, and I didn't have to repair anything besides the CHKDSK repair.
Tim Cooke
Posted 2010-12-21T18:04:49.410
Reputation: 111
3I was recently unfortunate enough to experience this on a Windows 8 installation. I got a bluescreen during the encryption of the OS drive. It is simply unable to boot up anymore. I am asked for the BitLocker password when I boot up, I type it, it validates it correctly, then black, and all the LEDs on the computer stay on. – Vercas – 2013-11-24T15:48:23.613