On Windows 11 (or 10), you can enable BitLocker (or Device Encryption) to protect your files using data encryption to prevent unauthorized access.
If you must erase a drive using encryption with BitLocker, you can use GParted, a Linux-based tool to manage partitions that allows you to delete and format any drive regardless of whether it’s using encryption.
In this
guide
, I will teach you the steps to wipe a drive when you can’t turn off encryption that has a Windows 10 or Windows 11 installation.
Wipe out a drive encrypted with BitLocker using GParted
If you still can’t erase the BitLocker encrypted drive, you will have to download and create a bootable GParted USB.
Create a GParted bootable USB
To create a GParted bootable media, connect a USB flash drive with at least 2GB of space to a different device and use these steps:
Download
tuxboot
from SourceForge
.
Double-click the
tuxboot-x.x.x.exe
file.
Click the
Yes
button to bypass the “unknown publisher” warning.
Select the
On-Line Distribution
option.
Choose the
gparted-live-stable
option.
Select the
USB Drive
option in the “Type” setting.
Choose the USB flash drive form the “Drive” setting.
Click the
OK
button.
Once you complete the steps, tuxboot will create a USB bootable media with GParted, which you can use to boot your computer and wipe out the encrypted drive in question.
Format drive with BitLocker with GParted
To use GParted to delete a drive using BitLocker, connect the USB flash drive with GParted to your device, and then use these steps:
Start your computer with the GParted USB drive.
Select the
GParted Live (Default settings)
option and press
Enter.
Select the
“Don’t touch keymap”
option and press
Enter
.
Select your language and press
Enter
.
Select
0
and press
Enter
.
Use the drop-down menu in the top-right corner to select the drive to delete.
Select the BitLocker encrypted partition and click the
Delete
button.
Select the remaining partitions and click the
Delete
button again.
Click the
Apply
button.
Click the
Apply
button again to confirm and commit the changes.
After completing the steps, the Linux-based tool will wipe everything on the drive you selected, whether it’s encrypted or not.