One of our machines that was running windows 11 had a system board failure and, after replacing the machine, we installed Manjaro. The new machine has been working fine, like our other machines that are running Manjaro.
We bought an SSD enclosure to attempt to recover files on the damaged computer. It is recognized by Manjaro but is asking for a password to access the data. The login password to that former machine is not accepted.
I was naively assuming that this would work like passing files by USB between machines running different OSs.
My questions are can you please point me to where I can learn:
How can the password be determined or changed? I read some information about attaching it and restarting the computer and trying to set the SSD password in BIOS; but that appeared to be to adding an SSD to the desktop itself rather than connecting one via USB; and I do not want to mess up the internal SSD in the machine.
If the SSD fits the new machine internally (a desktop), can Manjaro reformat it and use it for additional storage?
We’re using KDE Plasma and all available updates have been applied. Kernel 5.15.
Thank you.
Added later:
I had to wait 30 days to get the MS account to reset the second layer of security protection in order to get the key. Once it became available, attached it with the SSD enclosure, plugged the USB wire in and mounted it, and Dolphin asked for a password and accepted it. Didn’t need a virtual machine to run Windows. Thank you.
As an aside, I suppose I bought a cheaper enclosure ($35) because the SSD would not fit with the heatsink; so had to remove it. Just copying from the SSD made it heat up quite a bit.
For #1 all I can think of right now is to run the appropriate version of Windows in a virtual machine, attaching the disk via USB or internally and linking that to the virtual machine. Then you may possibly be able to unlock the drive there and copy needed files to e.g. a VM shared drive.
You will likely need to use the Windows disk-checking tools once it’s unlocked.
Is it password protected or is it encrypted - that will make a difference. That said, i have no clear idea or instruction for you. But password protection is generally hackable, if not by you in a specialist shop with rewriting the firmware of the drive. Which will of course cost you. If it is encrypted and you do not have the backup key than that is it with the data, you can just format it and use as a new drive.
I’m completely ignorant of encryption and password protection in this respect; I didn’t add a password to the SSD and never had to enter one; and I didn’t do anything to encrypt it but that might have been the default. It is a Samsung SSD in an HP Z workstation desktop computer.
I don’t know much about the TPM or Bitlocker either, apart from recalling that I’ve read about them a bit in the past but forgot all about it afterward.
Perhaps, if there is a chance to get the data, it will have to be through the same OS that wrote it, either directly or by virtual machine as suggested.
With this statement, I’m inclined to ask:
The password you entered below, was the sudo password on Manjaro for mounting a drive / partition, or the user password you used in Win11?
It would also help if you post the filesystem / partitions of your Samsung SSD, and which partitions you want to recover.
For now, all I can say is:
if your partitions are encrypted by Bitlocker, I’ve no hands-on with it, but I guess it would be troublesome.
if your partitions are password protected by some 3rd party app, then you will need the app (and the password) to unlock, or you need to “hack” it.
If your partitions have no such protection, it will be quite easy to recover data - just mount and access.
Win11 is cancer and M$ Bitlocker with TPM is the next level hardcore cancer.
Never use this so called “features” from Microsoft.
Your problem right now, has nothing to do with Linux and shouldn’t solved in a Linux Forum.
This is a Microsoft Windows only problem, ask in Windows Forum for help to restore your Files. When you have your files back, you should transfer them to a exfat partition which is Windows/Linux compatible.
After you done that, the Linux Gate is wide open for future assistance.
If Manjaro is asking for a password, then the partition is encrypted. Assuming Windows did the encrypting, then it’s Bitlocker. If you were signed into an online Microsoft account, then you can sign in here and find the key. Otherwise, if you don’t have the recovery key written down somewhere, that partition is likely toast, specially as the only other place that key was stored is in the TPM on the system board, which has failed. Hopefully you have good backups.
If you do have the recovery key though, Manjaro should probably open it just fine. You might need a more recent kernel; I recovered stuff from a Bitlocker driver with Kernel 6.6, so I know that should work.
And for the second question: you can reformat the partition to use it as extra storage, even without the recovery key.
Modern HP computers come with Bitlocker activated by default with no password, don’t ask you for a password at boot because the password is stored in the TPM chip. So you have a big problem if you don’t have the encryption recovery key (eight groups of six characters) asociated to a microsoft account, or written in a paper or saved as a key file. No TPM, no Recovery Key = no access to data. As you say “One of our machines”, you may be in a company, can anybody else have this key?
You can connect the external disk to a Windows computer to be sure it’ s Bitlocker, but with the information you gave us is almost sure.
I don’t think this info is correct (while it fits to BitLocker encryption). I never saw any indication that my Veracrypt Partitions had or required a Recovery Key at all.
In Veracrypt i just need my Password and that’s it.
I mean i could optional create a Backup Header but that is only to repair a broken encrypted partition (and still required my Password) and this has nothing to do with Data Access… no key needed there.
But for Bitlocker its not a word game… your Password is nothing worth in OP’s situation and the recovery key and the password is separated there.
I heared you can only mistaken 2 times the recovery key and with the third failure the files are history. But not sure if this rumors are actually true
For me is the Bitlocker Feature a punch in everyone OEM User’s Face, because OEM Windows user’s are total clueless and have no idea that they ■■■■■■when the TPM Module going in alert mode because of some hardware change.
99% not even know what bitlocker means and that their files are encrypted at all, but from one second to another the have to deal with it.
Microsoft Windows OEM’s what a nice user experience
I saw in a german windows help forum, endless topics around this user who are left without a trouser now and they all lost their files because of Bitlocker & TPM.
