I created a backup of my entire Windows 11 machine. There is just the C drive. It is encrypted with BitLocker. I also setup the ABB recovery wizard on a USB drive. I booted from the USB and was able to log into my Synology NAS and see the backups of the Windows machine. My question is: can I restore the entire backup or will BitLocker prevent me from doing that? I really don’t have any good way to test that easily.
According to Synology’s web site ABB Requirements and Limitations
“If your computer is encrypted with BitLocker, decrypt it before performing a backup”
That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me if you want to schedule backups. Has anyone out there performed a bare metal restore of a Windows 11 system that was encrypted with BitLocker?
Hello,
Bitlocker itself should not be a problem. As I understand it, it is not possible with Windows Encryption File System (EFS). You could test it by creating it as a virtual machine on the synology NAS
My guess is that ABB needs Bitlocker decrypted before backing up so that ABB can access the file system to do incremental backups. For incremental backup to work ABB needs to be able to determine file additions, deletions and changes. If everything is encrypted ABB can’t do that. So if you are able to backup while encrypted you’re probably doing a full disk backup every time.