Can I shut down my PC while BitLocker is encrypting?

The title question would be answered with No, the computer has to be running to be able to process the functions, any type.

simrick's post was just over a year ago, might use/include @simrick to post again, should get his/her attention.

ConfusedHelpMe said:

I am hoping someone can respond to this post. My Dell inspiron had bit locker turned on but we never turned it on. I didn't even know what bit locker was until it asked me for the key one day this past January. After useless conversations with Dell who said they couldn't help, I gave up and my computer has sat for a year locked. Yesterday, I decided to see if anyone else had this issue and gratefully found a solution. My computer after 12 months came back to life and no data had been lost.

Unfortunately, I decided to decrypt it this morning to prevent this from happening again and now the decrypt is frozen in one spot for the past 3 hours. It looks like it is stuck. What do I do? My computer is too slow because I have a power source problem. The battery does not charge. The adapter cord has to remain plugged to keep the computer from dying and this may be slowing down the computer. Now I don't know what to do. If I unplug it, it will stop everything in mid motion and I am afraid I won't get my laptop working again. Is there a way to see if this is actually doing anything or if it is stuck? It looks like SIMRICK had the same issue. How did you get it working?

Berton said:

The title question would be answered with No, the computer has to be running to be able to process the functions, any type.

simrick's post was just over a year ago, might use/include @simrick to post again, should get his/her attention.

Not sure I'll be too much help, but as I said in my previous post:

"EDIT: After an hour or so of just thrashing the drive, it appears to be working again, and decrypting the drive. Let's hope this works! I've no idea where a key would be found if it doesn't!
EDIT #2: It worked, so I can verify that even a power outage will not affect the Bitlocker function."

@ConfusedHelpMe After rebooting the system following the power outage, I opened Task Manager and watched the drive thrashing wildly - I had no idea what to expect, so I just let it go and let it thrash for a while (hours - I don't remember exactly how long, but it was a very long time, because the 1TB drive was over half full) . I don't remember how long it took, but eventually it picked up where it left off, decrypting the 1TB drive. So, I did nothing, and Bitlocker picked up where it left off. Luckily, the drive was fairly new, and all that thrashing didn't cause it to fail. (I have indeed seen mechanical drives fail miserably after several days/weeks of thrashing.) Also, I should mention that I had a Macrium system image available, so I would have been able to restore the drive to a few days earlier...hence, I took my chances with Bitlocker to see what it would do. I'm happy to report that it performed very well, despite the power outage. The key is to be patient, I guess.

p.s. battdepot.com is a good place for replacement batteries.