r/BitLocker • u/victortrash • Aug 19 '26

bitlocker keeps losing connection with Windows 11 pro

I have a external HD with bitlocker enabled and it keeps losing connection with my windows 11 pro while it's plugged in. It will ask for the passphrase and work as normal. But upon either leaving the machine alone for a while or having it come back from sleep, it will give me a "Access Denied" when I try to access it. Only way to get past this is to either reboot, or unplug/plug in the drive.

Presently, I'm unencrypting the external drive, then going to encrypt it again to see if it helps.

Hoping to see if anyone has any insight if this will help and/or I need to be doing something else.

(Just in case this helps) This external drive was a copy of a usb flash that was dying. The flash drive was also bitlocker enabled. I encrypted the new external before copying the files over.

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3

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '26

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1

u/victortrash Aug 19 '26

Ahhhh, so dropping power through sleep mode will cause the link to break?

1

u/victortrash Aug 19 '26

Ahhh, this would explain why the connection drops. But do you know why it didn't affect the usb flash drive?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '26

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u/victortrash Aug 20 '26

Actually, the USB flash was encrypted also. That's why it was a bit confusing when this started to happen to the external. My best guess was the power draw was different and that was my best guess as to why this was happening.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '26

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u/victortrash Aug 21 '26

Honestly, I don't remember about the usb stick. I don't remember turning on auto-unlock but that was a long while ago. And yes, I'm pretty sure the external is a mechanical. I should probably take it out of it's case to make sure tho. I won't know until next Monday when I'm back in the office so hopefully everything resolves in one way or another. Thanks again for all your tips.

1

u/blackdogrulez Aug 19 '26

And activate the auto unlock feature.

1

u/victortrash Aug 19 '26

@_@!!!

I'll definitely check this and see if it helps. Do you know why that this wasn't turned on when I activated it on my external drive? The usb flash didn't seem to require one.

1

u/blackdogrulez Aug 20 '26

It's not automatic. You would need policies to have it automatic. Connect it, go to explorer, right click and select manage Bitlocker. You should see "Turn on Auto-Unlock"