It is secure to encrypt the hard drive with BitLocker. But if you no longer need BitLocker encryption, how do you remove it from your drive? Now, this page will show you four different ways to turn off BitLocker encryption in Windows 10.
Note: No matter which method you use, you need to unlock the BitLocker encrypted drive with your password or recovery key before you can turn off BitLocker. If you've forgotten or lost all your encryption keys, then unfortunately there's no any way to remove BitLocker encryption without a password and recovery key except formatting the disk. Now, we assume your drive has been unlocked, and let's get started.
Step 1: Go to This PC, right-click the BitLocker protected drive and select Manage BitLocker from the context menu. This will open the BitLocker Drive Encryption control panel.
Alternatively, you can go to Control Panel > System and Security > BitLocker Drive Encryption.
Step 2: On the BitLocker Drive Encryption panel, locate the drive with BitLocker turned on, and then click Turn off BitLocker. When a prompt dialog opens, click Turn off BitLocker again.
Step 3: BitLocker is decrypting the drive. Decryption means removing BitLocker encryption. Just wait for decryption to complete.
Step 1: Type cmd in the "Type here to search" box on the left side of the taskbar. When the Command Prompt shortcut appears in the search results list, right-click it and select Run as administrator. This will open Command Prompt as administrator.
Step 2: In the Command Prompt, type the following command and hit Enter to start decrypting the drive. Replace E with your actual drive letter.
manage-bde -off E:
Step 3: Wait for the decryption to complete. You can constantly use manage-bde -status to check the decryption progress. When the Percentage Encrypted marked as 0.0%, BitLocker encryption has been removed from the drive.
Step 1: Press Win + X and when the Power Users menu opens, select Windows PowerShell (Admin).
Step 2: In the PowerShell, type Disable-BitLocker -Mount "E:" and hit Enter to disable BitLocker encryption for the drive.
Step 3: Wait for a while until the Protection Status is off, which indicates that disabling BitLocker encryption is finished.
Using command lines is effective, but it seems more suitable for advanced users and not easy for ordinary users. So, an easier way to remove BitLocker encryption from your drive is using iSumsoft BitLocker Reader. iSumsoft BitLocker Reader is an alternative to Windows built-in BitLocker Drive Encryption, which allows you to easily turn on and off BitLocker, and manage BitLocker for your drives. Here is how to turn off BitLocker with this tool.
Step 1: Download and install iSumsoft BitLocker Reader on your Windows 10. After installation, launch this tool. It will display all the disks and partition information on your PC, including the partitions encrypted by BitLocker.
Step 2: Locate the BitLocker protected drive, right-click it and select Turn off BitLocker.
Step 3: Click on the Decrypt button to start turning off the BitLocker encryption.
Step 4: Wait until you see the prompt "Turn off BitLocker Successfully" on the screen. This means BitLocker has been removed or disabled on your drive.