Fixed: The BitLocker Drive is not Accessible & Access is Denied

By Achilles Hill | Last Updated January 03, 2024

Want to unlock your BitLocker drive in your Windows 10 laptop, but a prompt is popped out to tell you that the drive isn't accessible and access is denied? At that time, you may consider to access the BitLocker drive by formatting it. However, this method will not only erase the data in the BitLocker drive, but also remove the BitLocker from your drive. Therefore, it's recommended to fix the access denied error instead of formatting the BitLocker drive and here is the way to fix the error that the BitLocker drive is not accessible and access is denied in Windows 10.

fix the inaccessible BitLocker drive

How to Fix the Access Denied Error of a BitLocker Drive

Step 1: Press Win+R buttons on the keyboard, enter "services.msc" in the box and then click the OK option.

enter services in run

Step 2: Double-click BitLocker Drive Encryption Service in the right pane of the Services Window.

choose BitLocker drive encryption service

Step 3: Select Automatic option in the drop-down menu of Startup type. And tap OK to save the change.

select automatic in startup type option

Step 4: In the pane with description of BitLocker Drive Encryption Service, choose Restart the service.

Tips: If you can't see the description pane, you can switch to Extended section by clicking the Extended option to find it.

restart BitLocker service

Step 5: At last, restart your computer and you will find the BitLocker drive can be opened again.

Tips:

There is an alternative way for you to lock the external hard drive or USB drive in Windows 10. You can take advantage of iSunshare SafeUSB Genius to protect the data from unauthorized access. You just need to connect the USB drive or external hard drive. After that, select the drive and enter the password. Lastly, click the Encrypt button and all data in USB are hidden.

protect USB data with SafeUSB Genius

When you want to access the locked drive data, you just need to click the Unlock button on SafeUSB Genius and then enter the correct password to unlock it. In no time, it will mount all encrypted data in a virtual disk for you to manage the data.

unlock encrypted USB drive