By Michael | Last Updated
Microsoft BitLocker always forces us to save a recovery key to our Microsoft account, USB flash drive, a file, or print it to somewhere safety place. Most people won't take it in heart until they forgot their password one day. In such a cease, you must format a drive that BitLocker has encrypted on Mac or PC to repurpose the drive. Here I found some workable ways to format a drive with BitLocker encryption on Mac or PC.
"I have a USB flash drive that protected by BitLocker. However, I have no Windows computer to decrypt it. What should I do to make it usable again?"
If you have a Mac rather than a PC in hand, it is still an easy way to format BitLocker drive as well.
Step 1: Open the Disk Utility from the Dock.
Step 2: Select your disk in the left sidebar and click on Erase.
Step 3: If you want to boot it both Mac and PC, select MS-DOS (FAT) then click on Erase.
"I have turned on BitLocker to HD. Sadly, password and restore key are lost and I want to wipe all files in this drive. Is there a way to format a drive with BitLocker encryption?"
Here I listed two ways for you to format the BitLocker dirve on Windows computer. You can either format it via Disk Management or Command Prompt.
Step 1: Find your computer management and you will get the Disk management option.
Step 2: Right-click your disk with the BitLocker protection and choose the Format option.
Step 3: Check the file system and allocation unit size and hit OK button.
Step 4: You will get the notification that suggests you to back up the data before formatting. If you make up your mind to format it, click OK again.
Step 5: Here will be a warning: The volume selected is BitLocker encrypted. Formatting will remove the BitLocker encryption and the encrypted data on the volume. You can enable BitLocker again after formatting is complete. Are you sure you want to format the volume? Click the Yes button and the formatting process will begin. You will get this BitLocker drive formatted in minutes.
Step 1: Open Command Prompt. Hit Windows + X key and click on Command Prompt (Admin).
Step 2: Run the command below and hit Enter at the end of each line.
Note: Make clear which disk you want to format. Otherwise, you may delete the wrong disk and lose your data.
diskpart
list disk
select disk n
clean
After that, the BitLocker drive has been formated. All data are cleaned.
Step 3: After format BitLocker drive, we need to create a new volume for it.
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