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I have a computer with a self Encrypted Drive (a hard drive with an AES encryption chip that requires login at boot to decypher the disk, that way it is hardware encrypted which "in theory" means zero speed loss.) On Windows, you can suspend the computer and windows will start back, but on Ubuntu, when the computer is suspended, I can start it back on RAM, but no HDD access is allowed (probably because the hard drive is locked or encrypted)

After searching through the web for that question, the only answer I found was : Use Hibernate. Indeed, when you hibernate you have to boot the computer back up which prompt the HDD login.

My question is what is the difference between windows and linux ? Why would suspend lock the disk ? And then, what/where should I look for a way to get that to work ?

Thanks !!

Xqua
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Suspend locks the disks because the power is cut. It is up to the computer's bios to unlock the drive again during resume. If it fails to do so, it is a bug in your bios and you will have to hope ( don't hold your breath ) that your motherboard vendor fixes it.

psusi
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  • Well but it works under windows ... so it's linux that does not tell the BIOS to not do that... I need the linux kernel on suspend to tell the BIOS the right thing ... and I don't know what that would be ... – Xqua Jan 22 '15 at 02:28
  • @Xqua, it isn't something that is told to the bios... it is just something the bios is supposed to do: it asks you for the password during boot, and hands it to the drive... it has to hand it to the drive again when resuming from a suspend, before resuming the OS. – psusi Jan 22 '15 at 02:36
  • Thanks, that part is working alright ! boot wise it boots up fine, but suspend wise only on windows does it work ! The thing is it does not either "prompt me" or saves it ... The question I am wondering is why does it work with Windows and not Linux. Thus my hypothesis that Linux is just not saying the "right" thing to the BIOS – Xqua Jan 22 '15 at 17:18
  • @Xqua, does it prompt for the password when you resume windows? It must somehow notice that the system is running linux and change its behavior. Whatever the reason, there is no way to ask the bios to unlock the drive; it just has to do it prior to resuming the OS. – psusi Jan 22 '15 at 18:13
  • Hey, no it does not prompt for the password for windows (except on hibernate). Thus it somehow either stores the key temporarily, OR it does not shutdown power to the drive ! – Xqua Jan 22 '15 at 18:33
  • Thank you for this. Turns out I didn't have the latest BIOS and after upgrading, the problems with my new drive disappeared! – Filip Procházka Apr 04 '21 at 16:44