Thinkpads Forum

Are there any utility or any other quick way to verify if a system has been delivered with BDE (Bulk Data Encryption) enabled disk?

Reason for asking is that in general Lenovo advertise that their system supports FDE (Full Disk Encryption) and has earlier claimed that all new Thinkpads are delivered with BDE-enabled disks. This might be only true to certain models - hence the question on how to quickly verify this.

Check in the Device Manager for your model hard disk.
Then find the spec sheet on the internet, using e.g. Google.
OR, perhaps it is stated in Device Manager HD Properties?

Unfortunately OEM drives doesn't always follows the original specification and as I understand reading around regarding BDE enabled disks that it's not always clear regarding what type of drives installed.

For 7K320, the BDE models have a slightly different model nos as described in the datasheet...

BDE Option Models
HTS723232L9SA61
HTS723225L9SA61
HTS723216L9SA61
HTS723212L9SA61
HTS723280L9SA61

For 5K500...

Bulk Data Encryption option models
HTS545050KTSA01
HTS545040KTSA01

According to the above mentioned datasheets, the last digit "1" means that the drive is BDE-enabled.

Could you check your Device Manager and find it out...?