File Share Encryption

Hi there,

I have a new Macbook Pro with 500GB hard disk. The original OS is Mac OS X 10.9. My company's IT person installed PGP Whole Disk Encryption 10.3.2 on it.

Today I tried to create a 250GB partition for the new OS 10.10 using Disk Utilitiy. Unfortunatelly the computer failed to restart. The PGP login screen is not displayed. Instead, a "Folder" image with a question mark is blinking on the screen forever. No keyboard or mouse events are accepted except Power button.

I tried following ways to recover, but all failed.

1. Downloaded a PGP Recovery CD image, burned a CD, then boot the computer from the CD. No Help.

2. Boot from internet (Command + R), use Disk Utility to repair those two paritions. Failed

3. Using Thunderbolt Cable to connect this computer to another Macbook  Pro which doesn't have PGP Whole Disk Encryption. I could see the hard disk but couldn't see its content.

How to recover this computer?

Thanks,

Feng

Hi Shantouchen,

There are a couple of concerning things that I notice right away.
Making changes to an encrypted drive is not recommended. Typically we recommend to decrypt first, then make any changes to the partition table, then re-encrypt. For more information regarding Drive Encryption best practices, please see the following article :  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH149543
(I understand this does not help you at this point, but would certainly be worth noting for future reference)

Additionally, upgrading to OSX 10.10, the Encryption software may still function, but may not be a supported version fo 10.10.
Mac OS X and Supported Versions of Symantec Encryption Desktop (Formerly PGP Desktop) - http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH174563

To specifically address your questions about recovery,
It sounds like you are on the right track with the recovery attempts.

1.)  The ISO should detect any encrypted file system information, but you may be having trouble with the CD... Did it display a bootguard screen at all? Or did it give an error?

2.) Unfortunately, this is not a recommended operation. We would not recommend using any OS level Filesystem error recovery tools or partition tools until the drive is encrypted, as changes to the filesystem will likely result in data loss. Again, we would recommend decrypting before trying a tool such as the MAC Disk utility.

3.) Target disk mode should allow you to attempt to mount the disk on another computer, but you WILL need to have Symantec Encryption Desktop installed on that computer in order to attempt to read the encrypted filesystem.

4.) To add my own suggestion on top of the recovery that you have tried, if you do setup Encryption Desktop on a second computer, and are unable to mount the disk to decrypt, it is likely that the encryption filesystem data at the beginning of the drive has been overwritten. If that is the case, there is only one further recovery method to try. This would be to use the bootg.iso file, which you can burn to a CD from the second computer. the bootg.iso shold be found within the application folder. Please refer to the next link for more information regarding the bootg.iso file 

For more information on our standard recovery procedures, please see the following link :
Drive Encryption Diagnosis and Recovery - Symantec Drive Encryption & PGP Whole Disk Encryption -
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH149679


I hope this helps you along with troubleshooting and attempting to recover your data.

Best Regards,
Phil