1. Go to Windows Desktop
4. Once Bitlocker Drive Encryption is open, look for the Turn on Bitlocker sentence and click on it and wait for the Bitlocker Drive Encryption wizard to appear.
a. Once the wizard appears it will automatically verify if the computer meets the system requirements required to encrypt data using Bitlocker.
b. Although it says it takes a few minutes, in most cases it takes up to 30 seconds on a modern computer setup.
5. Once the verification stage is done and the wizard finds the computer Bitlocker capable, it will ask how would you like to save your Bitlocker recovery key
a. Microsoft account – saves it in your Microsoft account
b. Save to a file – saves the recovery key to a text file
c. Print the Recovery Key – prints the Bitlocker recovery key, even to a virtual printer.
6. In this article we will choose the last option which is Print the Recovery Key and we will save it locally.
a. Note that Bitlocker doesn't allow saving a recovery key file onto the same drive that is about to be encrypted.
b. However, it does allow printing that recovery key to a file on the same drive that is about to be encrypted. This method is not recommended as well but for the sake of this article we will do it this way.
c. Note – Never save the recovery code file onto the same drive that is about to be encrypted. If for some reason that drive gets locked out, the recovery key file would be locked out along with it.
7. Once that option is chosen, the wizard will ask which printer to use to print the Bitlocker recovery key. In this article, as mentioned in stage 6, we will choose the Microsoft Print to PDF printer, which will print the recovery key into a PDF file.
8. After choosing the printer, click Print</