File Share Encryption

Hi Sirs, one of my customers is installing PGPWhole Disk Encryption ver 10.2.1(Comp4940)(pgpsdk 4.2.1) on a new laptop with a 500 Gb HDD with Win 7 prof Sp1 64 bits, but when he wants encrypt cannot continue due he receives the following message

This disk does not appear to have a valid volume

I searched the knowledge base ad found the follwing article

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH149276&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1356798212084

but after review this article shows the error message we get but the disk is not under the unsupported types, the windows device manager shows the following disks during installation

LITEONIT LMT-32L3M ATA Device y 
ST500LT012-9WS142 ATA device, list last is a Seagate HDD 500Gb capacity

so I dont understand why this error and request help in order to continue encryption

Regards

Could you please give a screenshot in windows Disk Management so we can view the type of partition this drive is utilizing. This error can be cause by using a GPT partition table. We do not support GPT partitioning in Windows.

 

 

Hi Bryan, I am sending you two images the one you request and another one showing information using DISKPART, effectively as is shown in the diskpart.jpg image the volume is using GPT partitioning, the customer says this laptop is an ULTRABOOK. Finally knowing this is the problem (GPT) and knowing ULTRABOOKs will be very popular, is Symantec working on a fix for this issue? sincerely the customer purchased the software and a modern laptop and now is waiting for an urgent solution in order to use the software. I hope Symantec can indicate a date to inform the customer and provide a solution Regards

GPT partitioned Drives are not currently supported with PGP Whole Disk Encryption on Windows. Most new laptops come GPT partitioned due to the bios using UEFI support. They can remove the partition table and set the bios to legacy mode and reinstall the OS and fix this issue. We are currently looking at supporting GPT partitioning for Windows. Do not have a date when it will be released. It should happen some time in 2013. Hope this helps.

 

 

Thanks Bryan, but following the changes you suggest to avoid GPT partitioning will they affect some features or perfomance of this Ultrabook?

Yes it will affect the performance of the drive. UEFI gives better performance of boot drives. The simple fact is that Symantec PGP Whole Disk Encryption is not compatible with this type of partition and if you want to use our security software then you will have to take the performance hit. If would like to know more about UEFI I'm enclosing a link to Wikopedia it gives a good description of what it's used for. UEFI does not work with NTFS formated drives. So Windows currently if UEFI is enabled on the motherboard it formats the Master boot partition GPT and then it will format the additional partitions NTFS. This allows The UEFI on the motherboard to boot the Windows Partition. There is not a big performance hit going legacy or BIOS compatible on a UEFI board, but GPT partitioning is better overall for large drive support and performance of the drive. Adding GPT partitioning support for Windows WDE is one of the features we are looking at implementing in the future, but the simple fact is that it's not currently available. Hope this helps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface

 

From my point of view, Symantec Development Team should have focused on supporting those GPT-partitioned machines, more than working hard on re-branding of acquired products and consolidating them in a single interface (though this is very important as well).

Agree that Dev Team should have a better solution by this point. These machines are quite popular. I'm having the same issue on a netbook with an Intel processor and 500 Gb HD from Acer.