File Share Encryption

Hello,

I hope someone here will be able and willing to help with this issue.

I received a new Latitude E6430 from Dell running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit on an i5 processor and installed PGP WDE v 10.0.1 on it. The installation and encryption of the boot drive proceeded without a problem, but when I rebooted the computer, I got a lot of strange screens and no passphrase box, finally ending up with a screen that said "Initializing loader_". Booting from the v 10.0.1 recovery disk gave me a different series of strange screens before it hung without ever asking me for a passphrase.

Dell suggested I check out "Diagnosing PGP WDE boot failure on new Intel Sandy Bridge Laptops with a PGP WDE Recovery CD" at www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH160346 , which for more information referred to "Unable to Load Windows on Laptop after Encrypting Disk" at www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH158600 , which says that the problem it refers to was caused by a bug in v 10.1.x, so I'm not sure it addresses the right problem.

I have not migrated to Symantec's versions of PGP because of negative experience with Symantec's acquisition of good software in the past. But now I am stuck with the question, is there something about newer hardware (such as that 6430) that is not compatible with PGP v 10.0.x?

Can someone shed some light on whether (a) there is something I can do to get v 10.0.1 to work on that computer, or (b) has it been established that it is just not compatible?

Thanks for your help.

 

 

Both of those cited Knowledge Base Articles appear likely to relate to your situation.  This KBA may as well.  PGP 10.3, and its recently updated service pack, address many issues that might also be related to your difficulty.  Additionally, those 10.0.x versions have many potential problems that have been corrected in current versions.  A newer version may well resolve this difficulty for you. 

Tom,

Thank you for your reply. I don't know what's going on in this forum. My "post" does not appear in the forum and shows in my workspace as not published, with no instructions on how to publish it. So I'm glad you've seen it and responded to it so quickly. A link to something that explains about publishing/posting here would be helpful. (Also, I'm subscribed to this post, but I didn't get an e-mail notice about your reply.)

Now, on my problem. So maybe I have to get the Symantec version in order to run on newer hardware. How would I do that? My maintenance only expired last October. I kept paying for maintenance even though I didn't download the newer versions. I don't think I got a notice to renew my maintenance this past October. When I click "Help > Upgrade ..." in PGP Desktop, I get the message, "Product manifest from the PGP Corporation update server fails the integrity check. / Please try again later."

Also important, if I upgrade to 10.3, will there be any way I can boot that new computer that was encrypted with 10.0, or has PGP trashed the OS so that I have to format the drive?

The forum uses an automated scan for possible inappropriate posts, such as spam.  I don't know the details of the scan and have no idea why your post has been selected by it to require administrator review.  This mistake sometimes happens, and your post will be able to be seen by other customers once it receives the needed clearence. 

If you are eligible for a free upgrade, this Knowledge Base Article will help you attain it. 

I would try using the WDE Recovery CD for your disk decryption. 

Tom,

This post now shows in my workspace as published, but it does not appear in the "PGP WDE for Windows" forum. Why not? Also, I still did not get an e-mail about your second reply, so I have to keep checking back here to see if you've replied. Why doesn't subscription to this post work?.

I followed the procedure in the first link in your last response and entered the serial number from my latest renewal, and it offered me V 10.2. I am now working with your renewal folks to get my account fixed so I can buy the renewal that I was not notified of last October. I presume that will get me a serial number with which that procedure will offer me V 10.3.

When I followed that procedure, I was offered four things: 10.2.x [MPy]. I understand that "MP" stands for "Maintenance Pack," but it appears that the things with this additional label are not just maintenance packs, but the full software, so I presume I just need to download the one item with the most recent posting date, which also has the highest values of x and y.

Finally, you suggested I try to decrypt with the recovery disk and you linked to a page with links for several versions of recovery disk images. As I said at the top of this thread, I already tried to boot from the 10.0 recovery disk, which hung the system. Are you suggesting I try booting with a later version recovery disk? That page you linked to and other documentation has prominent warnings about fatal damage from using a different version recovery disk. But I suppose that damage is only to data and not to the physical drive, so maybe I have nothing to lose by trying a later version if the current version won't work. Is that what you're saying?

 

There are later versions of pgp WDE for windows, than the one you mentioned. PGP was essentially bought by Symantec, so it may eventually fall under another name. The one advantage of having Pgp and anti virus and firewall under the same roof is that the two groups can synchronize what happens near the master boot record and hive files in windows.

No, I don't think there is any later version than 10.3.

I don't understand what you're saying about a connection with Internet security software. If you can give me a link to an article that explains the matter, I'll think about whether it is a reason to go back to Symantec's Internet security software. I stopped using it a few years ago in frustration over problems.

Tom,

I haven't had a reply from you to my last post, so I'll report what I've done and what I plan to do next.

I renewed my maintenance, after which the procedure in KB article Tech195170 offered me two versions of v 10.3. I downloaded the most recent one, 10.3.0 MP1.

Before installing that on the new computer, I needed to figure out what to do with the previous installation that has disabled that computer. To check that the problem was not caused by a bad recovery disk, I used the link you had sent me (above) for recovery disks, download the disk image for v 10.0.1, burned it to a CD, and booted from it. I got the identical results that I got before with the v 10.0.1 recovery disk made from the PGP Program Files folder.

So I cannot boot the computer from the hard drive, nor from either of two v 10.0.1 recovery disks. I am not going to make and try recovery disks from later versions because your docs are emphatic about not doing so.

I suppose there is nothing to do now but to reformat the drive, reinstal Windows, and then install PGP v 10.3.0 MP1. So that is what I am going to do now.

If you use a WDE Recovery CD version other than the PGP version on your machine, you risk damaging your operating system and data, but not any physical damage to the disk itself.  If you format your disk and reinstall or restore an image of your system, you will likely have to rebuild the MBR.  This can be done from a Windows XP Installation CD.

No, you can certainly BOOT from a newer recovery CD to test hardware compatibility with the preboot environment of the newer release. we simply do not recommend DECRYPTING your machine with a Recovery CD version that does not match the version that you encrypted with.

I would actually suggest that downloading the Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3.0 MP1 Recovery CD ISO from our support site and burning that ot a cD would be my first recommendation on testing if that works with your Dell Latitude E6430 hardware. I can tell you right off the bat that PGP Desktop 10.0.x will not work on this new laptop. It's an issue that we already addressed a couple years back. See this KB for more info:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH160346

Good luck, and I feel you will have great success there!

That link doesn't work, yields "You entered an unknown web address." Can you send the correct link please?

Thank you.

I think this link will work:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH160346

Thanks Tom MC it looks like I had a typo in the http code for the link :)