File Share Encryption

Two computers, one with PGP Home Desktop (older), one  with PGP WDE (newer).

Created Virtual Disk (VD) on Home Desktop, passphrase always works.

Transferred  VD to PGP WDE machine via thumb drive, when attempting to mount the VD, using the reliable passphrase, get following error message:

"The passphrase you entered is not a valid passphrase for this PGP Disk. (Note that there were one or more users with public keys that could not be checked,  possibly because these private keys are not on the default keyring or the token has not been inserted.) Please try again."

I am the only user,  PGP versions purchased within the same year though different licenses.

Do I need to do something with keys (besides learn a lot more) as in moving something from old machine to new machine to be able to open a VD?

I was under the impression that a VD could be opened anywhere, anytime as long as the passphrase is used, regardless of whether any version of PGP is installed.  In this case, having PGP WDE on the new machine seemed to be icing on the cake.

Side note: PGP appears to be so unstable (looking a posts here) that I have not run the WDE fearing loss of access to machine.  Now that is a vote of confidence in PGP and Symantec.  If this software is better run by administrative support specialists,why sell it to small business operators who do their own IT work?

It sounds like you encrypted the Virtual Disk to your public key.  If this is correct, you need to export your key (making sure to place the appropriate check to include your private key) from the one computer; then importing the key to the other machine, and then right clicking on the key in All Keys, and setting Trust to Implicit.

As to the WDE problems, what is receiving so much concern is newer larger disks using a 4096 byte sector size instead of the standard 512 byte sector size that is all PGP currently supports.  From what I'm hearing the fix for this issue is to be very soon released. 

Thank you. Your analysis sounds correct. I was not aware of the option to encrypt the virtual disk to my public key and may have done so without realizing all the implications.

I will mark this as a problem solved once I have time to implement your solution  If it does not work, I will have better information to  redescribe the problem and we both know that is a good chunk of solving the problem. 

It sounds like there are better/worse ways to secure a virtual disk depending on what the anticipated use is, as in whether it willl be a  virtual disk only I access or a virtual disk I  want to share with others.  The default, in my case, is the former.  I simply want a secure machine in the event of loss of the machine and the ability to trade virtual disks between the two machines as they are dedicated to different parts of my operations.

Thanks again.

You are welcome.  Please note that I have corrected my response from (making sure to place the appropriate check to include your public key) to (making sure to place the appropriate check to include your PRIVATE key)

Thanks for corrected response.  Had not implemented anything yet and will operate on new  information. 

Followed your revised comments on the problem, odd that when you change the trust setting there is not "Save Changes" button--you just close the dialog box and that is it.  However, your advice worked and the virtual disked opened without problem.

Thanks.