Updating BIOS with Bitlocker. Do ALL drives need suspending or just the C drive?

The BIOS for "My Computer" shown below was updated again today from 1.11.0 to 1.12.0.

I used the Dell Command | Update app to do the update.

Note that Dell Command | Update automatically suspends BitLocker while the BIOS is being updated. I didn't have to do that as a separate operation.







After choosing Restart the operation was successfully completed and BitLocker was enabled again.

That pretty much proves that anyone who manually updates their bios needs to suspend bitlocker first, no matter what brand computer they have. Not everyone has a Dell and, even those that do, do not always use command update. It's suffice to say that many consider manufacturer apps as being bloatware and remove them.

If you forget to suspend BitLocker on the OS drive, Windows will challenge you for the BitLocker recovery key at next boot of the system, so it's not the end of the world, simply an annoyance to deal with.

hsehestedt said:

for the BitLocker recovery key at next boot of the system

Click to expand...

According to that Dell article I mentioned, not only would BL recovery key be asked for at next boot, but at each and every boot going forward. If that be true, it would irritate the heck out of me.

I wonder how many users, who have no clue what BL is, enable it during setup.

I also found this Dell article that is quite interesting BitLocker is Prompting for a Recovery Key, and You Cannot Locate the Key | Dell US In part it says "A BIOS update can trigger a BitLocker Recovery event as the PCR banks between the time Windows runs, and the time the BIOS is flashed, changes. However, all Dell BIOS updates suspend BitLocker before the flash so a BitLocker Recovery event cannot occur as a result of updating the firmware. If the computer goes into recovery mode, it is likely due to an external drive being connected as it changes the boot drive enumeration. Users can configure this in the BIOS. Outside of this specific scenario, there is not an event that triggers BitLocker encryption unexpectedly. The BitLocker encryption process happens in the background and often goes unnoticed by users until a Recovery event occurs."

TraderGary said:

The BIOS for "My Computer" shown below was updated again today from 1.11.0 to 1.12.0.

I used the Dell Command | Update app to do the update.

Note that Dell Command | Update automatically suspends BitLocker while the BIOS is being updated. I didn't have to do that as a separate operation.

After choosing Restart the operation was successfully completed and BitLocker was enabled again.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is how I understood it all as well. What I didn't like (well maybe not the right word there) is Dell having the option to effectively do things without my input. It wasn't so much BIOS updates and so on that made me clean install, it was other stuff as well that was running and that I didn't know about, like the Dell version of system restore. I wanted a lean and mean Windows install :) but as I said earlier, the Dell set up is designed to be pretty much user independent in operation and run all these things without worry.

glasskuter said:

That pretty much proves that anyone who manually updates their bios needs to suspend bitlocker first, no matter what brand computer they have. Not everyone has a Dell and, even those that do, do not always use command update. It's suffice to say that many consider manufacturer apps as being bloatware and remove them.

Click to expand...

On Bloatware. On mine which is classed I suppose as a business laptop there was nothing apart from Windows installed. Nothing as in none of usual junk apps that come with new PC's but it did seem to have lots of Dell utilities related to maintenance/system restores and goodness know what else. I could see the disk space falling in front of my eyes (that was the Dell sys restore app).

Some of you might remember this. Look at the Macrium image in post #10 and compare to the one in post #5. That was how much space all the Dell stuff was using vs a clean install. I also see I mention 'loads more stuff' installed by me on the second image: