The BitLocker Encryption On This Drive Isn’t Compatible With Your Version Of Windows

In Windows, BitLocker offers full volume encryption (FVE) for operating system volumes, plus fixed and USB drives/volumes. When you encrypt your BitLocker drive, usually an encryption algorithm is used. By default, this encryption algorithm is XTS-AES 128-bit encryption.

Sometimes, the difference in encryption algorithm may cause issues while you operate the encrypted drive. To understand this issue, let us take an example. Suppose, you encrypted a drive with BitLocker on older Windows 7 or 8.1 and then you tried to open it on Windows 10 but the drive fails to open. You receive following message:

The Bitlocker encryption on this drive isn’t compatible with your version of Windows. Try opening the drive using newer a version of Windows.

So you now clueless what happened to your drive and why you can’t open it. Actually, if read the error message carefully, it hints you the cause plus remedy for this issue. Here is how you can fix it.

The BitLocker Encryption On This Drive Isn’t Compatible With Your Version Of Windows

BitLocker uses different type of encryption algorithms. In Windows 10, AES-CBC 128-bit, AES-CBC 256-bit, XTS-AES 128-bit, or XTS-AES 256-bit encryption algorithms are supported. For fixed and operating system drives, usually XTS-AES algorithm is used. However, for removable drives, Microsoft recommends to use AES-CBC 128-bit or AES-CBC 256-bit if the drive will be used in other devices that are not running Windows 10 (Version 1511). In older Windows 7, AES encryption algorithm was used.

You can select, if you want to use 128-bit of 256-bit drive encryption, in this article.

The reason behind the error is difference is encryption algorithm as well as your Windows version. So the resolution are as follows:

If you encrypted the drive on Windows 7/8.1 and try to open it in Windows 10 and it fails, because Windows 7/8.1 uses AES encryption algorithm, while Windows 10 uses XTS-AES. For this case, you’ll need to open encrypted drive only with Windows 7/8.1.

For the very same reason, if you try to open BitLocker drive on Windows 7/8.1 that was encrypted on Windows 10 with new encryption mode selected and if it fails, you need to open it only on Windows 7/8.1 machine.

So the bottomline is, try to open the drive only in same Windows version in which it was encrypted.

Hope this helps!