{"id":784,"date":"2012-01-30T21:47:25","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T21:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/?p=784"},"modified":"2025-07-26T12:52:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T11:52:41","slug":"create-a-windows-7-bitlocker-partition-in-configmgr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/deployment\/create-a-windows-7-bitlocker-partition-in-configmgr\/","title":{"rendered":"Create a Windows 7 BitLocker Partition in ConfigMgr"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM \/ ConfigMgr) &nbsp;something I&#8217;ve done a few times is to create a BitLocker partition for Windows 7 during an Operating System Deployment (OSD) Task Sequence. I&#8217;ve seen the method used here a few times before but I wanted to document it for myself so that I can use it for an upcoming article on configuring BitLocker with TPM+PIN from ConfigMgr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Instructions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>These instructions are the same for both ConfigMgr 2007 and 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edit your deployment Task Sequence and select the <strong>Partition Disk 0<\/strong>&nbsp;node. By default there is a single partition, we will create an additional partition so that we end up with two partitions named:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>System Reserved<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>OS<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/partition_overview.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"400\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/partition_overview.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-791\" title=\"Partition Overview\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/partition_overview.png 700w, https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/partition_overview-300x171.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Call the first partition <strong>System Reserved<\/strong>&nbsp;and configure it with the following options:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Partition type:<\/strong>\u00a0Primary, Use a specific size (300 MB)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Make this a boot partition:<\/strong> Checked<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>File system:<\/strong> NTFS, Quick format<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/system_partition.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"404\" height=\"525\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/system_partition.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-793\" title=\"System Partition\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/system_partition.png 404w, https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/system_partition-231x300.png 231w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Windows 7 you only need a 100 MB partition for BitLocker, but I prefer to use 300 MB to leave room in case you want to use the Windows Recovery Environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Call the second partition <strong>OS<\/strong>&nbsp;and configure it with the following options:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Partition type:<\/strong>\u00a0Primary, Use a percentage of remaining free space (100%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>File system:<\/strong>\u00a0NTFS, Quick format<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Variable:<\/strong> OSPART<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/os_partition.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"404\" height=\"525\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/os_partition.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-795\" title=\"OS Partition\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/os_partition.png 404w, https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/os_partition-231x300.png 231w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The variable <strong>OSPART<\/strong>&nbsp;can now be used to correctly identify the partition to be used in the <strong>Apply Operating System<\/strong>&nbsp;step of the Task Sequence. Configure as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Destination:<\/strong> Logical drive letter stored in a variable<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Variable name:<\/strong> OSPART<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/apply_os.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"538\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/apply_os.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-796\" title=\"Apply Operating System\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/apply_os.png 700w, https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/apply_os-300x231.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now when this Task Sequence runs the disk will be partitioned correctly for future use of BitLocker. Alternatively, you can also just use a single partition and run the BitLocker preparation utility to shrink and partition the drive. This is sometimes useful when using USMT and hard linking to preserve disk contents. Personally, I&#8217;m a little paranoid and generally prefer to use USMT to backup to the network and then properly clean and partition the disk as above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview In System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM \/ ConfigMgr) &nbsp;something I&#8217;ve done a few times is to create a BitLocker partition for Windows 7 during an Operating System Deployment (OSD) Task Sequence. I&#8217;ve seen the method used here a few times before but I wanted to document it for myself so that I can use [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[39,59,62,91,68,6],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deployment","tag-bitlocker","tag-configmgr","tag-deployment","tag-mecm","tag-sccm","tag-windows-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100130,"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/100130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}