Windows 10 Bitlocker takes a long time after boot to unlock drives

Article
2020-05-07

Question

_{Thursday, May 7, 2020 9:53 PM}

I have an issue that's impacting multiple apps.

I have 5 drives, all encrypted with Bitlocker and all set auto-unlock on logon. My system drive is a NVME system drive only, all other files are on the secondary drives made up of a mixture of SSD, NVMe and one HDD.

The issue is that the secondary drives don't unlock until up to a minute after Desktop appears after logon). This means Onedrive, Dropbox, Steam and other apps effectively crash on every boot as they can't find their respective folders/files.

Bitlocker unlocks via a password at the start of the boot as I don't have a TPM Module. I've had this setup since the Win 8 days and it's was never an issue until Win 10.

Screenshots below. In the first, my E: ( the hdd) isn't even showing, it appeared about 10 seconds later. This is how it looks for up to a minute, before they all unlock and their proper drive names show. The error message get if I click on one of the drives below and is confusing, its saying the drive is unlocked but protected. The drives eventually unlock properly so its not an access or password issue, but I need them to unlock on boot like they should so all the apps run.

All replies (13)

_{Friday, May 8, 2020 2:34 AM}

Hi,

As far as I know, initial encryption maybe take a long time.

About unlock the driver, the message below may helpful.

Also, decrypting a drive is time consuming: Microsoft estimates that it takes approximately 1 minute per 500 MB of drive space.

You may refer to the following link for details:

https://www.dell.com/support/article/en-sg/sln299056/automatic-windows-device-encryption-bitlocker-on-dell-systems?lang=en

Note: This is a third-party link and we do not have any guarantees on this website. And Microsoft does not make any guarantees about the content.

Hope above information can help you.

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
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_{Friday, May 8, 2020 9:35 AM}

We use auto-unlock a lot in the company and never see this on win10 - the drives (sometimes up to three auto-unlock drives) will unlock immediately.

As a workaround, I would use a script to unlock those and either start that manually or through a scheduled task that gets started at logon of your user.

manage-bde -unlock d: -rp 11111-223432-...yourrecoverypassword_for _d-...

manage-bde -unlock e: -rp 423443-233432-...yourrecoverypassword_for_e-...

_{Saturday, May 9, 2020 3:29 AM}

Thanks, what does the -rp and the "11111-223432-"" parts do ?

Say my unlock password was "Test123" for all drives, does mean the command to unlock D: would be

manage-bde -unlock d: -rp Test123

_{Saturday, May 9, 2020 5:34 AM}

As the text says, that's your recoverypassword, that 48-digit key.

If you don't have those keys handy, you may get those like this:

manage-bde -protectors -get c:

manage-bde -protectors -get d:

...

_{Monday, May 11, 2020 7:14 AM}

Hi,

Just checking in to see if the information provided was helpful.

If the reply helped you, please remember to mark it as an answer.

If no, please reply and tell us the current situation in order to provide further help

_{Thursday, May 14, 2020 9:01 AM}

HI, Sorry been trying a few things on repeat.
I've tried running it from Task scheduler both on boot and logon, but still the same issue.

E:\ sometimes appears with the lock symbol, disappears completely from Explorer for about 20 seconds, then reappears unlocked.

its totally random, one boot will be fine, the next it won't.

Another avenue of attack - is there a way (perferable without third party apps) to defer everything loading after logon ? Even if I can just defer Onedrive, Steam and a couple of others by 1 minute this wouldn't be an issue.

_{Thursday, May 14, 2020 9:46 AM}

ok so I've found a solution, not ideal but it works.

I'm using Task Scheduler to launch the impacted programs individually with a 1 min delay.

Would be preferable if there was some way to delay all programs

Or fix it completely.. Is there a log or somethign I can dig into to maybe find out why Bitlocker is taking so long ?

_{Thursday, May 14, 2020 7:37 PM}

Run the commands interactively on the command line and see what happens - is it just sitting there and then finally completing?

_{Saturday, May 16, 2020 2:29 AM}

so E: will eventually unlock if you just leave it, after it disappears and reappears its good to go. This can take about a minute

F and G however are currently refusing to be accessible through explorer. They both have the lock icon on them in Explorer, both come up with the error message when you click on them
"The drive protected by Bitlocker Drive Encryption is already unlocked"

Manually trying to unlock them using the manage.bde command results in
"ERROR: The volume is already unlocked."

I can access them through command prompt, but not explorer.

Confused as to what's going on. the drive is clearly unlocked, but Explorer refuses to allow access.

_{Saturday, May 16, 2020 9:56 AM}

That is called "a bug".

You could try to de-crypt and re-encrypt. Not much you can do, else.

_{Sunday, May 17, 2020 9:18 PM}

ok, will do a full decrypt and recrypt.
thanks.

_{Tuesday, May 19, 2020 10:06 AM}

Ok so that didn't help, still the same issues.

Starting the programs manually through Task Schduler with the 1 min delay seems the only answer.

_{Thursday, May 21, 2020 7:46 AM}

Your machines seems to be very busy at startup.

You could do a test and boot windows setup and mount them from there (command line to be invoked by shift F10 at the language selection screen) - I bet, there they would mount instantly.

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Windows 10 Bitlocker takes a long time after boot to unlock drives

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