How to Open BitLocker Drive on M2 MacBook Air?

There is no built-in way to unlock a BitLocker-encrypted drive on macOS. However, there are a few third-party tools that can do this, such as UUb yte BitLocker Reader for Mac or run a copy of Windows on your Mac using VirtualBox.

Using UUByte Bitlocker Geeker

BitLocker Geeker for Mac is another tool that can be used to unlock a BitLocker-encrypted drive.

1. Launch UUbyte Bitlocker Geeker and select the BitLocker-encrypted drive from the list of devices.

2. Click the "Unlock" button.

3. Enter the recovery key or password for the drive.

4. Click the "Unlock" button again.

Once the drive is unlocked, you should be able to access it like any other drive.

learn more here:

https://williamhartz.medium.com/how-to-unlock-bitlocker-drive-on-mac-the-2021-guide-9054dd90d2c7

Using VirtualBox

It is possible to do so using VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a virtualization tool that allows you to run different operating systems on your computer, than you can easily share files between Windows and Mac via your bitlocker drive.

1. Start by creating a new virtual machine in VirtualBox. Choose Windows as the operating system and select the version of Windows you want to install.

2. Once the installation is complete, reboot the machine. you will be asked for the BitLocker encryption key. Enter the key and you will be able to access the drive.

3. To access the drive from macOS, you will need to mount the drive in VirtualBox. To do this, open the VirtualBox application and go to the Devices menu. Choose the option to Mount Disk Image and select the BitLocker-encrypted drive.

4. You will be prompted for the BitLocker encryption key. Enter the key and the drive will be mounted. You will now be able to access the drive from macOS.

There are a few things to keep in mind when using BitLocker in VirtualBox.

1. First, make sure that you do not forget the BitLocker encryption key. If you forget the key, you will not be able to access the drive.
2. Second, make sure to back up the drive regularly. If the drive becomes corrupted, you will not be able to access the data on the drive.

However, keep in mind that unlocking a BitLocker-encrypted drive on macOS is not officially supported by

Microsoft. As such, there is always a risk that something could go wrong. Therefore, it is always recommended to create a backup of any data on the drive before attempting to unlock it.

Hi kaydenwan,

If the steps from Connect and use other storage devices with Mac are not allowing you to access that drive, it may be necessary to utilize third-party software or remove the encryption on the drive for the purpose of file transfer. Similar posts may offer helpful suggestions such as Opening BitLocker Encrypted SSD or open a bit locker encrypted usb on Mac OS.

Regards.

kaydenwan,

Since that still persists, you'll want to reach out to Microsoft for further assistance: Microsoft Support They'd be in the best position to assist with a drive that was encrypted using their methodology and operating system.

Take care.

According to this page the M3 software is compatible with Apple Silicon. There is a link noting that a system extension must be enabled for it to work.

https://www.m3datarecovery.com/mac-bitlocker/

https://www.m3datarecovery.com/mac-bitlocker/enable-system-extension-m1-mac.html

This is likely the easiest option. I know there is some free open source software available, but it is not easy to use and may even need to be compiled as I'm not sure if anyone is distributing it in binary form. I don't recall the name of the project as it has been a while since I used the software.

Bitlocker is not the best choice for sharing encrypted drives between Macs and Windows because it is a Windows only encryption method. Plus Microsoft may change Bitlocker encryption methods so any third party may not be compatible later on (may take a while, if ever, for third party software to catch up with any changes to Bitlocker). A better more universal option is VeraCrypt for encrypting drives for use on both macOS and Windows.

Keep in mind Microsoft does not provide any official means of accessing a Bitlocker encrypted drive from another OS. The only solutions out there are from third parties who have attempted to reverse engineer the Bitlocker encryption and even the NTFS file system. There are no guarantees. It is great when it works. Even if a third party option can unlock and read the data within a Bitlocker volume, I would be very reluctant to write data to the volume as it may corrupt the data on the volume.

Or maybe the file system on the Bitlocker volume is corrupt and needs repaired. You should only use the official utilities provided by Windows to repair a Bitlocker and/or NTFS volume.

You would be better off accessing the data from Windows. You can try installing the Intel version of Windows on the laptop by using the UTM app which is a machine emulator & virtualizer. Performance is likely to be slow, but it may allow you to access the data if you don't have another copy of the data. After retrieving the data, if you want to continue using the drive with macOS, then erase it with a file system macOS handles natively. macOS has its own encryption option if the drive will only be used with Macs, otherwise use a more universal encryption method as I mentioned previously.

No matter what you do, you should always have frequent and regular backups of all media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data. The more important the data, the more copies of the data you should have stored on different media and locations.

The simplest solution and least time consuming is to have your wife copy those files you want to an unencrypted drive. Probably have already spent way more time than that already trying to get the data off the encrypted drive.

Another option, temporarily have her copy the files to One Drive and install the One Drive app on the your Mac and move them that way.