Another un?documented Windows behavior -- occasionally useful in this
case :)
--
Regards,
Christian
From 9a506433ea47aac7b19f1e03c99d800ec2e55b11 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Christian Franke <christian.fra...@t-online.de>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2025 11:33:25 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Cygwin: doc: add note about raw devices of BitLocker
partitions
Signed-off-by: Christian Franke <christian.fra...@t-online.de>
---
winsup/doc/specialnames.xml | 6 ++++++
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)
diff --git a/winsup/doc/specialnames.xml b/winsup/doc/specialnames.xml
index 02375e737..4b232002a 100644
--- a/winsup/doc/specialnames.xml
+++ b/winsup/doc/specialnames.xml
@@ -361,6 +361,12 @@ the information between
<filename>/proc/partitions</filename> and the
<command>df</command> output, you should be able to figure out which
external drive corresponds to which raw disk device name.</para>
+<para>Raw devices of partitions protected by BitLocker provide access to the
+<emphasis>decrypted</emphasis> NTFS image. If the partition is locked, read
+attempts fail with <literal>Permission denied</literal>. The corresponding
+block range from the raw device of the full disk provides access to the
+<emphasis>encrypted</emphasis> image as stored on the disk.</para>
+
<note><para>Apart from tape devices which are not block devices and are
by default accessed directly, accessing mass storage devices raw
is something you should only do if you know what you're doing and know how to
--
2.45.1
