Sorry, I haven't completely gone through the user guide and my question is simpler than the other Bitlocker question in this forum. Nothing fancy here. I want to backup my work laptop which is Windows 7 x64 Enterprise and drive is encrypted with Bitlocker. I am a local admin so I can manage Bitlocker and have access to the keys. Is it as simple as I install HDM 14 Pro, suspend Bitlocker, and backup with HDM in Windows? And if I have to restore, I assume I would suspend Bitlocker (if possible) and restore from the HDM recovery environment (if I had to restore the entire partition)? Let me know if it's easier or harder than I make it seem. I've never managed Bitlocker and don't know how it affects backing up and restoring using a recovery environment. Obviously files are not an issue with a healthy Windows environment, but I want to be able to recover the entire partition if necessary. I'm also thinking about swapping the HD for an SSD for performance and I've also never done a migration with Bitlocker. Thx.
The information available in the HDM 14 Pro User Manual seems simple and clear. To work with bitlocked partitions, it´s necessary to unlock them first.
I guess I'll wait until Monday to see if anyone has something besides a non-answer. But congrats on upping your post count by one. Anyway... Here's the process someone ignorant like me goes through and why I must to come to a forum for assistance. It's obvious from my question I have no idea what I'm talking about. HDM User Manual says encrypted volumes must be "unlocked" Windows 7 UI has "Turn on", "Suspend", and "Manage" Windows 7 Help has "Turn off" Google "unlocked" and end up with many articles on turning Bitlocker off So at this point "unlocked" means "turning off" Bitlocker which will get me fired *and* HDM can only backup when Bitlocker is turned off That doesn't make sense so I keep looking I eventually make the connection that unlocked means still installed, still working, and it's not a giant ball of random characters Because my laptop has one partition, if I'm using Windows then it's unlocked. All the examples were for a separate data partition which contributed to my corn-fusion. At least now I have a slight understanding. Backup from Windows: No problem. Back up from recovery media: Must unlock it. Restore from recovery media: Must unlock it and assume it will just go back and be happy. I also assume that suspended means that it is unlocked until I un-suspend Bitlocker. I'm a technical guy but this is far away from what I know. Here's a better answer for my question: "You don't need to suspend Bitlocker to backup from HDM in Windows." I'd have follow up questions but at least there would be some knowledge transfer.
I will "upp" my post count by another one. The manual uses Windows 8 or 8.1 as examples, as the images indicate. Operations can have different names in Windows 7. The manual doesn´t detail this and refers the reader to unspecified MS docs. And it´s clear to me that BitLocker must me "unlocked" even if working from Windows. What I don´t understand is, if the "unlock" operations are executed from Windows or from the command line in the WinPE boot medium, why is BitLocker not supported in the Suite edition?
lol - That is what I was trying to puzzle out today so I'm glad someone knowledgeable has the same question. It makes me feel like I almost know something. Perhaps someone from Paragon would clarify? Here's a post from Paragon_Chris earlier this year before the release of HDM 14 Pro: "Due to the nature of the encryption used with Windows and Bitlocker the only way we can accurately back up a bitlocker encrypted drive would be a file level backup when you have the drive unencrypted or a drive level with raw processing." I'm OK taking this a face value and not understanding why, but I didn't want to purchase the Pro version if I didn't need to (and save some $$$).
