File Share Encryption

Cannot mount virtual disks

I've been using Macintosh computers since 1984, and PGP encryption products since the mid-1990s, through the transitions from PGP Inc. to Network Associates to PGP Corp. to Symantec. I've got gigabytes of encrypted virtual disks, which were encrypted for good reasons, including protection of confidential student records, in the somewhat less-than-ideal security environment of a university department. I need continued secure access to these data, and the "decrypt everything and wait for a solution" option isn't a very good plan.

So, understanding that something perhaps "went wrong" between developer seeds of MacOS 10.7.4 and the final release, and not blaming anyone anywhere, certainly not frustrated engineers—could we please have an update on where things stand? Through all these years, I've never lost confidence in the underlying stability and security of the PGP system—until now. The absence of feedback, even if it's no more than customer reassurance while somebody somewhere fixes this catastrophic fail, has got me rattled. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Prof. Tony Affigne, Providence College

Please specify Mac hardware and software.

Do you see any error message?

Screenshoots?

Julian_M,

Thanks for your reply; here's my system profile:

Hardware:

iMac 21.5-inch, Mid 2011

Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory: 12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Software:

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)

PGP Desktop 10.2.1 MacOSX

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There are no error messages. I can send no useful screenshots, since none of my virtual disks will mount on the desktop, despite (apparently) successful decryption—the decrypted virtual disks do appear in Disk Utility, but cannot be mounted from there, either.

I've removed all PGP components from my system, after decrypting my critical volumes via the Disk Utility / disk image work-around—as I'm not confident about continued availability of my critical files, or the overall integrity of my system, with PGPwde installed.

Thank you for any assistance!

Lion 10.7.4 at the moment has serious problems with PGP - it has broken a lot of things:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/mac-os-1074-breaks-pgp-desktopenterprise-102-virtual-disk-problem

and

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH188695

If these are mission critical I would suggest waiting a few releases before upgrading, don't upgrade to the latest or seeing if there are issues before upgrading.

Hopefully the solution in the 2nd URL can help, good luck!

Our testing in QA with 10.7.5 has proven that virtual disk mounting is working now. But there are still some quirks in regards to logging out or logging back in and finder is not showing the virtual disk drive as a volume again. Symantec Engineering is still looking into  this issue dilligently and we hope to have a solution with an upcoming product release.

I was wondering if there has been any progress on this issue since the last update? This is making life very hard for me.

I have all my important documents stored in a PGP container. I can't access those now.

Irconically, I still can access the less important documents I placed in an encrypted DMG file. This makes me question the value of PGP ($300 for 2yr support) vs the FREE disk utility.

is there any update please ?

I ran into a problem kind of like this.  My solution was to COPY my public/private keypairs and store them safely on a thumb drive or external.  Decrypt your boot drive. 

Completely uninstall PGP.  Follow the tech paper on how to manually uninstall PGP from the Terminal on a Mac.

Delete the folder that would hold your keypairs (instructions are in the above mentioned Tech paper).

Re-install the PGP for the latest version available compatible with your OS X version.  Allow PGP to create a new folder for your keypairs.  Manually import your keypair using the PGP dropdown menu and Preferances.

PGP should now see your drives, virtual and otherwise.

My lesson was to completely decrypt all folders/files prior to any upgrade, OS X or PGP.

Hi, if you would kindly read the original forum discussion about this:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/mac-os-1074-breaks-pgp-desktopenterprise-102-virtual-disk-problem?page=1#comment-7388281

This is fixed with PGP Desktop 10.2.1 MP2

Thank you.

I am closing this thread now as to avoid confusion.