Bitlocker warning - Security Key Required

[Roo53]

Hello one and all. I am very new to Linux and I'm not overly computer literate. But I'm determined to get Mint up and running.

I have what I believe is a small issue you might be able to help me with. Upon re-booting after "I think" I installed Mint to an external hard drive, I was greeted with a blue screen and this message, or words to this effect, "Bitlocker - need to enter recovery key because of secure boot policy changes."

No issues with the recovery key - I was able to locate it via another laptop. Once entered everything performed okay (windows 11) but I was loathe to try and boot into Mint. Obviously, I've done something wrong, but I don't know what, and I'm not sure how to proceed from here.

Your advice and guidance would be much appreciated.

Many thanks.

[diabolicbg]

I had the same problem with a friend's computer whom I cleaned viruses from with an external Avira rescue disk. After the reboot, the system asked for that Bitlocker key, but once entered, it stopped looking for it and now works normally.

[Roo53]

Hi diabolicbg, I'm sure it's not a big issue, but I just need to make sure I haven't done something wrong, or that I've somehow altered something that should not be altered. There is info online, but quite contradictory. I wouldn't trust it anyway. It's best to hear from users here. Hope all is well in your world.

[diabolicbg]

Hi diabolicbg, I'm sure it's not a big issue, but I just need to make sure I haven't done something wrong, or that I've somehow altered something that should not be altered. There is info online, but quite contradictory. I wouldn't trust it anyway. It's best to hear from users here. Hope all is well in your world.

The new Windows are written not to serve the user, but to suit Microsoft. Nobody cares about our concerns.

Be healthy and experiment boldly!

[Roo53]

I agree, sir, and I will...hmm!! With a little bit of guidance...lol.

[diabolicbg]

I agree, sir, and I will...hmm!! With a little bit of guidance...lol.

No problems! I think that's why we're here on the forum - to help each other.

[AndyMH]

You should have no problems booting into mint (at least not caused by bitlocker). Note that mint does not understand bitlocker so you will not be able to access files on your windows partitions, i.e. C:. There are utilities you can install in mint to read bitlocker, I've never used them so don't know how good they are. The same is true in reverse, win cannot read linux partitions. Again there are utilities you can install in win to read linux filesystems (personally I think it is a bad idea).

[MikeNovember]

Hello one and all. I am very new to Linux and I'm not overly computer literate. But I'm determined to get Mint up and running.

I have what I believe is a small issue you might be able to help me with. Upon re-booting after "I think" I installed Mint to an external hard drive, I was greeted with a blue screen and this message, or words to this effect, "Bitlocker - need to enter recovery key because of secure boot policy changes."

No issues with the recovery key - I was able to locate it via another laptop. Once entered everything performed okay (windows 11) but I was loathe to try and boot into Mint. Obviously, I've done something wrong, but I don't know what, and I'm not sure how to proceed from here.

Your advice and guidance would be much appreciated.

Many thanks.

Hi,

For proper multiboot installation, see viewtopic.php?f=42&t=381590

Regards,

MN

[mikeflan]

Note that mint does not understand bitlocker so you will not be able to access files on your windows partitions, i.e. C:. There are utilities you can install in mint to read bitlocker, I've never used them so don't know how good they are.

If you install dislocker from the repository and do some version of these commands in a terminal, you will probably be able to read a bitlocker partition. I do this quite often. It is a hack, but it works.

Code: Select all

sudo mkdir /media/bitlocker02
sudo mkdir /media/mount

sudo dislocker -V /dev/sdf1 -u<password you used> -- /media/bitlocker02
sudo mount -rw -o loop /media/bitlocker02/dislocker-file /media/mount

You would need to change sdf1 to the relevant partition and bump the bitlocker02 to bitlocker03 to . . . . each time you use the commands. And you often need to modify the drive and unmount as Root.

[Roo53]

MikeFlan & MikeNovember, & AndyMH, thanks to each of you for your support and guidance. At least I know now that I haven't broken the puter and that puts my mind at rest. I'm still working through the information at the link. I'm sure I'll get there. Thanks again, so very much appreciated.

[PaulL]

Bitlocker can be disabled in Windows. I learned this the hard way, because it was enabled when HP wanted to do a firmware update, and the prompt said nothing about disabling Bitlocker first. It makes your Windows access and hard disk irrecoverable after the firmware update. Only later, as I was looking for something else on the HP site, did I encounter the warning to disable Bitlocker before doing anything with the firmware and instructions how to do it.

You might consider doing a full backup of your Windows files, so that if anything should ever go wrong, God forbid, at least you could restore everything. I sure wish I had listened to my own advice, lol!

[AndyMH]

I believe by default in win11 bitlocker is enabled.