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We bought new HP EliteBook 840 G8 laptops with SSDs running Windows 11 and wanted to enable their self encryption with password or fingerprint authentication at boot-up, but without the need for additional tools. Since I couldn't find any suitable guide on the Internet, I thought I'm gonna summarize the instructions here since the set up is a bit weird with HP laptops — at least, in comparison to other vendors like Lenovo.

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Preliminary considerations

HP offers two different options: DriveLock and Automatic DriveLock. While DriveLock is best for single-user devices, Automatic DriveLock was designed for multi-user devices. Please note that these two alternatives are not only mutually exclusive, but also cannot be switched once one of them has be set up — at least, switching from one to the other didn't work on our laptops!

Setting up SSD encryption on HP EliteBook 840 G8

  1. Activate BitLocker on Windows — it was enabled, but not activated. (Even HP Support missed this crucial step.) Make sure to backup the recovery key!
  2. Reboot and enter UEFI/BIOS by pressing ESC repeatedly and then F10.
  3. Go to "Security" → "Hard Drive Utilities" → "DriveLock/Automatic Drive Lock".
  4. Select you SSD.
  5. Select "Enable DriveLock" and set a administrator password. Caution: Backup this password! The administrator password is required to disable DriveLock again.
  6. Set a user password. The user password is required to unlock the drive at boot time.
  7. Save and exit UEFI/BIOS.
  8. Now you will be prompted for the BitLocker recovery key (see step 1). Confirm it by pressing enter.
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    How is this HP encryption, if it uses Microsoft BitLocker? And can it be used under Linux? See superuser.com/questions/376533/…
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Jul 25 at 15:05
  • @Ramhound My answer is the condensed log of what I did to get it working. Activating BitLocker was a crucial step. HP would not allow for enabling DriveLock without it. BTW: I've posted both, questions and answers on other StackOverflow sites years ago.
    – fuggi
    Jul 26 at 15:18
  • @fuggi Crucial step for what? BitLocker is not required for SSD hardware encryption at all. Your answer is "How to enable HP DriveLock", not "How to enable SSD self-encryption". Neither BitLocker not DriveLock are required for that.
    – ﾤ ﾡ
    Aug 20 at 12:05

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