When I was looking at my old stuff, I found an external hard disk I used three years ago. It was locked by Bitlocker as a policy of my previous employer.
Now I am using macOS, and my home lab is Linux-based. So, I tried to find a way to unlock it and copy all data to my new Synology DS923+.
The best -and smoothest- way to do that was by Dislocker.
Dislocker – as described in GitHub- has been designed to read BitLocker encrypted partitions under a Linux system. The driver can read/write on:
BitLocker-To-Go encrypted partitions – that’s USB/FAT32 partitions.
Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 encrypted partitions – that’s AES-CBC, AES-XTS, 128 or 256 bits, with or without the Elephant diffuser, encrypted partitions;
My bastion server is Ubuntu, so here are the steps I used:
1- Installation
On Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update
sudo apt install dislockerOn Fedora
sudo dnf install dislockerOn Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S dislocker2- Identify the device
I connected my BitLocker-encrypted drive and used the following command to find its device path:
lsblkJust look for the appropriate device name (e.g., /dev/sdX where X corresponds to your external drive).
3- Create the mount point
I created two directories: one for the dislocker output and another for mounting the drive:
sudo mkdir /mnt/dislocker /mnt/bitlocker4. Unlock the BitLocker Drive
Next, run dislocker command to decrypt the drive. based on the appropriate unlocking method:
Using the Password (I tried this method):
sudo dislocker -V /dev/sdX1 -uYourPassword -- /mnt/dislockerUsing a Recovery Key, If you have a recovery key (a 48-digit number):
sudo dislocker -V /dev/sdX1 -rYourRecoveryKey -- /mnt/dislockerNote: Just Replace /dev/sdX1 with your actual partition path.
5. Mount the Unlocked Drive
The decrypted BitLocker volume will appear as a virtual file at /mnt/dislocker/dislocker-file. Mount it:
sudo mount -o loop /mnt/dislocker/dislocker-file /mnt/bitlocker6. Finally, access the Drive
You can now access the unlocked drive contents at /mnt/bitlocker.
cd /mnt/bitlocker
lsNote: If dislocker is not available in your distribution, you may need to compile it from source by following instructions on its GitHub repository.
This process should allow you to safely access your BitLocker-protected drive on Linux!
Former Nuclear Engineer | University Lecturer | Technology Advisor | Digital Transformation evangelist | FinTech | Blockchain | Podcaster | vExpert ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | VeeamVanguard ⭐️⭐️ | Nutanix SME | MBA | AWS ABW Grant’23
