Laptop BitLocker failing on drive with free space fragmentation

4.5

Fragmented free space prevents BitLocker from creating a contiguous recovery area.

Symptoms
  • "Insufficient space" error
  • Encryption fails at 99%
  • Slow writes
Possible Causes
  • Deleting many small files
  • Full drive

Step-by-Step Fix

1

Consolidate Free Space

Use a defrag tool with "Free Space Consolidation" mode.

2

Delete Large Files

Temporarily remove large files to create a big block of free space.

3

Run TRIM (SSD)

Ensure the SSD has optimized its free blocks.

When to See a Technician

BitLocker needs a certain amount of contiguous space for its own metadata.

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