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While in troubleshooter command prompt, the boot drive letter is not necessarily c, even by default #2407

@IDON-TEXIST

Description

@IDON-TEXIST

Affected page

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/encryption/#bitlocker

Description

Currently, the instructions for enabling Bitlocker on Windows 11 Home assume the OS boots from c. This is not always the case. On my system, my extra hard drive is c and my boot drive is d (the opposite of how it is when I'm in the OS, because of course it is).
Enabling bitlocker on a non-boot drive leads to confusing error messages that "windows needs to be updated" when trying to enable tpm as a protector, for obvious reasons.

The best way I know of to identify the correct drive letter is with diskpart and list volume, but it's not great--one would have to use the capacity to identify the correct partition. Does anyone know a better way?

Sources

Here's an example output of diskpart and list volume. The 476 GB SSD is my boot drive.

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     C   HDD          NTFS   Partition    931 GB  Healthy
  Volume 1     D                NTFS   Partition    476 GB  Healthy    
  Volume 2                      FAT32  Partition    100 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 3     E                NTFS   Partition    768 MB  Healthy    Hidden

And here is how it appears when I am booted:

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     D   HDD          NTFS   Partition    931 GB  Healthy
  Volume 1     C                NTFS   Partition    476 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 2                      FAT32  Partition    100 MB  Healthy    System
  Volume 3                      NTFS   Partition    768 MB  Healthy    Hidden

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  • I am reporting something that is verifiably incorrect, not a suggestion or opinion.
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