This article outlines how to access external media that has been encrypted on a Windows computer with Microsoft BitLocker on a computer running Ubuntu Linux.
1. Install the Dislocker package from the Ubuntu software repository.
sudo apt install dislocker
2. Create mount points
The first mount point is for a place for the system to mount the dislocker file.
sudo mkdir /media/bitlocker
The second mount point is the one at which he system will mount the dislocker-file as a virtual filesystem.
sudo mkdir /media/mount
3. Now we must determine the device name for the external storage device.
All hardware connected to a Linux system have a corresponding mount point listed in the /dev directory.
To determine the mount point for the external storage device, use the fdisk command.
sudo fdisk -l
A knowledge of Linux device nomenclature is helpful so that you can determine which of the devices returned by the fdisk command is the external encrypted storage device.
In our example below it is the /dev/sdb1 device. /dev/sda is always the first internal storage device in the system, with each subsequent device being named sequentially in alphabetical order as /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc.
Knowing the size of each device on your system helps in identifying the correct device. In our example, I know the external drive is 5TB, so the only on that fits that is /dev/sdb1 at 4.6TB.
4. Now we mount the external device. In the command example below, you substitute password for unlocking the device for [PASSWORD].
Note that [PASSWORD] is not the BitLocker recovery key, but is the password you created when you encrypted the device.
sudo dislocker -r -V /dev/sdb1 -u[PASSWORD] -- /media/bitlocker
5. Now to mount the encrypted volume as a virtual file system.
sudo mount -r -o loop /media/bitlocker/dislocker-file /media/mount
6. The external encrypted storage device is now accessible via the Ubuntu file manager utility.
2022.12.22 - dkearney