Required to logon to unlock a Bitlocker drive?

Discussion in 'Windows 8' started by Myrrh, Sep 14, 2012.

  1. Myrrh

    Myrrh MDL Expert

    Nov 26, 2008
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    This is a weird one. I've got some BitLocker encrypted drives which at any time one of them is plugged to a USB caddy attached to my local machine. For each of the drives, the first time it was attached, I ticked the box to "automatically unlock this drive in the future" and it is shared as "backup" and appears on the network as \\mymachine\backup.

    Overnight, the network servers send their backups to this drive.

    If I am logged on when I plug a drive in, Explorer opens and shows me its contents. However, if I am logged off and plug it in, the drive will remain in a locked state until I log on at which time it unlocks. This means that the overnight backups fail because the shared folder is not accessible.

    I am pretty sure when it was Windows 7 it did not matter whether I was logged on or not. Ever since Windows 8 I have this issue. Obviously the workaround is "make sure you're logged on before plugging the drive in" but I want a fix not a workaround. Bitlocker is essential for these drives because one of them at all times lives in my car for offsite storage, if stolen the thief will get only a hard drive, not all my company's confidential data.
     
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