Endpoint Encryption

Working with PGP Desktop 9.8.3 on an XP Pro SP3 laptop.

We have had a virtual disk in use for a few years now, but now when we open PGP and select the disk, the option to mount the disk does not appear. The info screen for this disk shows:

Mounted as: not mounted

Format: Invalid

Encryption: Unknown

Status: The disk is corrupted

If we go to windows explorer and try to select the folder we get the message ".... <foldername> refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network..."

We do have Ghost images of the entire drive available.

Any suggestions to repair/recover the folder are greatly appreciated.

Tomster2

If I'm understanding this correctly, you are unable to access the folder that contains the Virtual Disk pqd file.  If this it the case, it sounds like a Windows problem, and I would do a Windows Error-checking scan of the drive. 

Windows XP SP3 is not supported with PGP Desktop 9.8.3 (see attached copy of the release notes for reference if you would like). Also, PGP Desktop 9.x support is now EOL (no longer supported) please see our release announcement here around EOL dates and products here:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH195346

Sorry for that abrupt response. But I want to be clear on this, as Support will not be able to do anything to resolve bugs or do extensive troubleshooting on that release.

My suggestions to try in attempt to resolve the issue:

- take a backup of the existing PGD file (that won't mount)

- test upgrading PGP Desktop 9.8.3 to Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3.0 from https://fileconnect.symantec.com

   if you don't have an up to date maintenance agreement you can download the trialware and use the features for 90 days to test

- if that doesn't work try the following recovery options:

 a) Run chkdsk on the volume which stores the PGD file

chkdsk /f /r c: (example)

 b) Take another spare hard drive and restore the Norton Ghost image to the drive and attempt to mount the PGD stored on that freshly imaged drive

One strong word of advice. If you are using PGP Virtual Disk I would highly recommend doing nightly backups of the PGD file elsewhere to give you a quick recovery point as large file like that can be prone to corruption over time.

Attachment(s)

pgpDesktopWin_983_readme_en.pdf   91 KB 1 version