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I just recently moved from Windows to Ubuntu so I am very much a beginner in Linux. I had saved some files on my portable SSD Samsung T5 1Tb when I was using Windows. But then I switched to Linux and deleted the Windows so I have only Ubuntu now. Unfortunately I cannot access my saved files on SSD anymore because its encrypted, it asks for password which I know but it only works on Windows or Mac, did some research tried doing some commands like sudo apt-get install exfat-utils but it doesn't work. So I can access the ssd, I mean plug it in but I cannot access the saved files because they are protected by password and in order to access my files I need to run SamsungPortableSSD.exe file that I was doing before in Windows and type the password. So there is executable file that when run it pops up and asks for password. When I plug the ssd into laptop and of course it won't run on linux, tried running it with wine but it doesn't work.Can someone help me with this because I absolute beginner in Linux, what steps I need to do?

Edit Running ls -la inside the auto-generated mount point returns the following results:

total 17488 
drwxr-xr-x 3 petar petar 16384 jan 1 1970 . 
drwxr-x---+ 4 oot root 4096 may 30 09:33 .. 
drwxr-xr-x 3 petar petar 4096 oct 16 2018 SamsungPortableSSD.app
-rwxr-xr-x 1 petar petar 17875824 oct 16 2018 SamsungPortableSSD.exe 
-rw-r--r-- 1 petar petar 118 oct 16 2018 'Samsung Portable SSD SW for Android.txt' 
-rw-r--r-- 1 petar petar 0 oct 16 2018 'This is Read Only partition.txt'
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  • HI could you edit your question and add the more info about what you mean with "I can access the ssd but I cannot access the files themselves" ... can you see the files? Perhaps also in the file browser goe to the ssd, and where it shows the exe right click on free space and select "open in terminal" and add the output of the command ls -la run in the terminal
    – d1bro
    May 27, 2021 at 20:22
  • You may find this answer helpful. Here is what you can do: Ask a friend with a Windows computer and install the exe file there. Access the T5 in your friend's computer and copy all the files and folders from T5 to a temporary folder in your friend's computer. Format T5 without encryption and copy your files and folders back. Delete all the things you copied and installed on your friend's computer.
    – user68186
    May 27, 2021 at 20:53
  • Is Windows fast start up on? That sets hibernation flag and then the Linux NTFS driver will not default mount it to prevent damage to hibernation & your files. You can force mount read only, but really need to make sure fast start up or hibernation is off.
    – oldfred
    May 28, 2021 at 13:50
  • @d1bro When the ssd is plugged in and when I run the ls -la command, this is the file structure: ThinkPad-T14s-Gen-1:/media/aul/T5_SETUP1$ ls -la total 17488 drwxr-xr-x 3 petar petar 16384 jan 1 1970 . drwxr-x---+ 4 root root 4096 may 30 09:33 .. drwxr-xr-x 3 petar petar 4096 oct 16 2018 SamsungPortableSSD.app -rwxr-xr-x 1 petar petar 17875824 oct 16 2018 SamsungPortableSSD.exe -rw-r--r-- 1 petar petar 118 oct 16 2018 'Samsung Portable SSD SW for Android.txt' -rw-r--r-- 1 petar petar 0 oct 16 2018 'This is Read Only partition.txt' May 30, 2021 at 7:46
  • @oldfred I dont have Windows anymore May 30, 2021 at 7:52

3 Answers 3

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If you need to access that EXE file because of a password protection or something, your safest bet is to try and run the EXE with WINE.

sudo apt install wine-stable -y; wine <path to exe> should do the trick.

Edit: just a disclaimer that this is not guaranteed to work, but it the easiest solution to try.

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  • I tried with wine and it would run the executable but its not working properly, it says the sdd is disconnected, please plug it but its plugged in so unfortunately this samsung software is not working on linux, it only works on mac and windows. And it is encrypted I would need to find some other pc with windows to transfer the files and then format the ssd without encryptio May 30, 2021 at 7:44
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sadly there is no direct way on ubuntu to run that exe-file. Yet there are a possible solution - you could try running windows inside a virtual machine and pass the ssd through:

  • install virt-manager: sudo apt install virt-manager
  • add yourself to the libvirt group (just in case) sudo usermod -a -G libvirt <username>
  • start the service (somehow this is needed): sudo systemctl start libvirtd
  • download windows10.iso from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO
  • open virt-manager and install windows inside a virtual-machine
  • once installed shutdown windows
  • add a host usb-device to the virt machine - follow the steps in the image and select the appropiate device) enter image description here
  • now start windows and do your decryption
  • to get the files into ubuntu you could either set up a file-share in windows or pass through a nother external device
  • after you have "rescued" your files you could try disksor gparted to format the disk (if you use luks encryption - it can only be read by linux systems) - for a platform independent encryption solution i would recommend verCrypt https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Downloads.html

Good Luck

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Thank you guys for helpful tips, in the end it was simple. I just used some other laptop with windows and plugged the ssd and then I ran the executable and basically turned off the encryption so now I can use it on any system

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