How to fully encrypt removable media on (affordable) Windows 10 home edition devices. More secure, more cheap, more better !

Ok Girls, Gurls, Sisters, here we go on a techie post.

I dearly needed a small lightweight versatile laptop thingie. Enough of Android tablets, they are just not the real deal no matter how much you invest on gimmicks, apps and so on.

Battery endurance was a key factor as I intended to mostly use it on trips and between delayed flights. Therefore CPU power was not really a cardinal variable in the equation.

A very cute girly like Atom x5-Z8350 CPU powered machine smiled there at me, proud of her price tag in the lower 200 US$. They also had an utterly cute pink carrying case. Bingo, took the cake home.

And used it ever since, this post inclusive.

First things first, install windows 10 version 1809 from ISO. Quite  a lot of disk space became free in the process as the bloatware just vanished courtesy of the clean install. A few drivers later it was all set.

Freed from advertising burdens, the small beast turned into quite a peppy girly machine with real effective battery endurance of 9 or so hours. Yay !

However with only 40 or so GB free out of 64, I was in a tight situation to carry all projects, manuals, customer cases, service bulletins. An SD card slot ? Sure there is one...

I'm a contractor and privacy matters. The thing has a TPM chip and soldered components, full compliance with what Microsoft requires for a certified Bitlocker Full device encryption.

That is, main SSD encryption because W10 home edition does not support security on removable media.

So sticking in a 256 GB SSD wouldn't help. Too much sensitive data could become exposed in case of theft.

Ok, roger that. Upgrade to W10 pro edition ? Use third party encryption ware?
Nah, not in here.

Windows 10 home edition will not encrypt removable media but it will gladly encrypt mounted virtual disks.

The solution ? Self explanatory. Create virtual disks on the SSD card, mount them and let the whole device encryption perform it's magic.

Simple elegant, cost effective. With a task scheduled to mount those disks at every boot.

Now Honeys let's put it this way. It takes a certain prior practice to get there. Which is why I don't publish a walk-thru.

I mean, your data is at the stake. So if all that precedes is sort of alien to you then you better call for help.

Furthermore this is Microsoft encryption. And your private keys will be stored on their servers so you could retrieve them if things go wrong.

In other words, highly non reliable for covering-up illicit activities as Microsoft will be glad to positively react to subpoenas.

However a great protection in case of theft as crooks are unlikely to invest that much in cracking a stolen computer. They would reinstall it and resell.

And last but not least, yes, I will provide you with as much help as I can fit in my free time.

I love you, I love you all !