I can't copy data to a USB

Question

Hi there,

I am here for help, we have workstations connecting to our domain via Azure AD but we have a problem with connecting external hard-drive and USB

when we want to connect a hard-drive or a USB to the laptop a window appears that ask you to Encrypt the disk when we want to encrypt it says

" The drive cannot be encrypted because it contains boot information, create a separate partition for use the system drive that contains the boot information and a second partition for use as the operating system drive and then encrypt the operating system drive."

if we choose don't encrypt we can't put data on it but we can copy data from the disk to the laptop

how can I solve the issue? I don't mind to encrypt the disks but doesn't let me to do it.

Could you please help me to solve the issue?

Thanks in advance,
Best Regards,

Answer 1

Hi,
Does this happen to all the external drive?
What is the OS version?
You could try using use DISKPART to set the partition you wish to encrypt as INACTIVE. This will allow you to Encrypt with Bitlocker. See below screenshot that shows marking a Partition on a USB Flash Drive as INACTIVE.

Best regards.

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Answer 2

Lately, I have seen this myself and I suspect that a windows update changed the behavior and causes this.
The only way I got rid of that message was using diskpart (as depicted by Dale) but with a different command: clean.
diskpart
list disk
select disk x (x is the number of your stick)
clean
Attention: this clean command will remove all partitions from the stick, data is lost, so save it beforehand, the recreate the partition(s) and encrypt it (should succeed now), then restore the data.

Answer 3

same issue here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/186615/bitlocker-encryption-on-usb-only-works-after-volum.html?childToView=241547#answer-241547, still unresolved