Fixing bitlocker recovery screen issue on a dual-boot Windows/Linux system

published: 18 August 2025

If you dual boot Linux and Windows you may have found that Windows asks for your recovery key every time, which is very annoying considering that it is 48 numbers long.

I found a fix online which I have reproduced here - many thanks to Gareth Jones.

  1. Install Grub Customiser. If you are running Debian you can just apt install it.
  2. Edit the Windows entry to start with exit 0.

This makes grub exit and the Windows boot-loader take over. Windows then boots without the recovery screen.

Written by Tom Brandis