Z61t and Vista's BitLocker - Anyone Try It Yet?

[leewalk]

Hopefully I haven't missed some earlier info, but has anyone tried enabling BitLocker on their z61t running Vista?

I'm hoping it works out-of-the-box...

Thanks, Lee

[warder]

I tried looking into it on my z60m but the TPM isn't compatible (even with current Lenovo Vista drivers) and you have to have some weird partitioning to use it:

"Before you can turn on BitLocker Drive Encryption you need to make sure that your computer's hard disk has the following:

At least two partitions (also called volumes).

One partition is for the operating system drive (typically drive C) that BitLocker will encrypt, and one is for the active partition, which must remain unencrypted to start the computer. The size of the active partition must be at least 1.5 gigabytes (GB).

Both partitions must be formatted with the NTFS file system."

[leewalk]

Did the BitLocker control panel also say "A TPM was not found. A TPM is required to turn on BitLocker. If your computer has a TPM, then contact the computer manufactor for BitLocker-compatible BIOS."

If the BitLocker control panel did not say that, then it sounds like your z60 is compatible but needs to be repartioned to make it work...

Anyone have a z61t with different results?

[leewalk]

I received confirmation today from a Lenovo corporate rep that the z61t does support Vista's BitLocker with BIOS version 2.11 or later.

If anyone can confirm this in person, please reply!

Thanks, Lee

[intelliot]

Weird... Microsoft seems to claim that BitLocker is a Windows Vista feature.
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVi ... x?mfr=true

[warder]

It is... but as you so well linked to:

"It is designed for systems that have a compatible TPM microchip and BIOS. A compatible TPM is defined as a version 1.2 TPM. A compatible BIOS must support the TPM and the Static Root of Trust Measurement as defined by the Trusted Computing Group."

Hence it requires appropriate hardware in your PC to store the encryption keys. Most current Thinkpads are 1.1b TPM, so who knows if it will ever work. Potentially IBM might release some updated BIOS, but we'll find out over the next few months I'm sure.