File Share Encryption

I have two computers which have some personal data on them.

I use them also for business, since I move around a lot.

Both of them are Windows 7, one ise 32 and other is 64 bit system.

I want to encrypt the whole harddrive, also I want to encrypt my USB disk which I use for backup.

My main question is, if my computers fail, how will I be able to read the encrypted USB backup disks on another machine?

Or If i want to take only the drive with me, to my business partner, how will I be able to copy data from my USB disk to his machine?

Thank you for your reply.

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Symantec community.

I would be glad to answer your query.

My main question is, if my computers fail, how will I be able to read the encrypted USB backup disks on another machine

--> It's not possible. On same machine we can use access disk to take the back of the data or recovery disk to decrypt the disk but we can not connect encrypted disk to other machine. 

Or If i want to take only the drive with me, to my business partner, how will I be able to copy data from my USB disk to his machine?

-->  If files are encrypted with Removal Storage (RS) then provide the password which has been used for encryption with SEE RS access utiltiy so that client can decrypt/view files on his machine.

What if my motherboard fails? Some old laptop, where new motherboard is not available anymore. Then I have a crypted HDD, how can I access my files? I cant?

In case of hardware failure it's not possible to recover the data.

Hello,

If you're using PGP for encryption then your business partner would have to have PGP also.

All you would have to do is plug your device into his computer and PGP will prompt for a passphrase.

Enter your passphrase and the drive will unlock.  Your files maybe copied to the other machine and will be unencrypted when copying over.

If your motherboard fails then slave your hard drive to another machine with PGP and use the GUI in PGP to decrypt the hard drive and enter your passphrase. 

Thanks

Anthony

I wanted to jump in and ask a couple questions, as we might have a bit of a misunderstanding going on.  We offer two encryption products, and Chetan and Anthony are both correct, but from different product perspectives.

If you are using Symantec Endpoint Encryption (SEE), Chetan basically has the right idea.  I believe the drive encryption is somewhat tied into the hardware ID's etc from the system it was in originally, and it can be difficult if not impossible to recover data after a hardware failure (e.g. motherboard death).  In this case, backups are your friend.  You could use SEE Removable Storage to transfer files to your business partner, even if the recipient does not have SEE installed.

With Symantec Encryption Desktop (SED, formerly PGP Desktop), you can slave the drive to any othersystem that has SED installed, and attempt to access the drive to recover data.  You would simply use any valid passphrase for the drive to authenticate to it.

In the case of a removable device, you can use Symantec Drive Encryption (part of the SED package) to enrypt the USB drive to a passphrase.  It can then be opened on any system using SED by entering that passphrase after pluggin in the drive.

If you have encrypted files on a USB, and your business partner does not have SED, you could potentially get a trialware version for them to install to access the USB drive.

Let me know if that covers it, or if you have additional questions.