File Share Encryption

I have been attempting to install PGP Whole Disk Encryption on a Dell Windows 7 Pro laptop.  Every time I have attempted to encrypt, I am unable to boot into Windows, and have to pull the drive so I can decrypt from another PGP enabled PC.  

When attempting to boot, it jumps right through the PGP screen and stalls on a black screen with the message 'initializing loader'.  I attempted to boot from the recovery disk, but get a PGP disk data corrupted message.

Windows performed updates during the initial encryption process, so I figured the updates were the original cause of the error, but since that time I have uninstalled/reinstalled the updates, and have uninstalled PGP WDE 10.1.1 and reinstalled 10.1.2.  At this point, I still have the same issue.

I was hoping someone would know what needs to be changed or fixed for this to work, or if I need to rebuild from scratch to fix whatever file(s) may be corrupted.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

This is still unresolved. 

Have two brand new Dell E6320 with Intel Core i7-2620M, Windows 7 -32bit OS, and Intel HD Graphics 3000. Can't boot after the encryption process has completed, and noticed the corrupted display on the lower part of the boot up PGP screen. 

Seems like a combination of the graphics card / processor / chipsets as one of the above users has suggested to be the cause. If anyone has found a way to work around it (do not have the option to disable the graphics card in BIOS), please let me know, and thank you in advance. 

I am having this same issue with PGP Desktop 9.10 on with WinXP SP3 on an Dell E6520.  These is no Optimus setting in the Bios as it has an Intel video set.  The unit is set to ATA for the controller and if I set to ACPI or Raid it behaves the same.  I'm sitting tight and have a support case open with Symantec.  Thankfully I only have 2 of these here so far.  If anyone has a "valid" fix please let me know.  Thank you

@ J_Haggerty:

The problem described in this forum thread is with PGP Desktop 10.1 and 10.2. PGP Desktop 9.10 is likely not affected by this bug. There are other bugs which cause the Stage 2 - initializing loader screen to appear on Windows XP.  I wouldn't hold your breath for the next release since I dont' think you are seeing THIS bug in particular.

read the following articles (some our on our symantec KB system and some in the legacy PGP forums)

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH149631
 

http://forum.pgp.com/t5/PGP-Whole-Disk-Encryption-for/quot-bootguard-initializing-loader-done-quot-message/td-p/43310

I think, in your case, decrypting the hard drive and then re-encrypting it should do the trick.  I would also highly recommend upgrading your machine to PGP Desktop 10.1 (with the exception of any new Dell's with the nvidia optimus setting) because PGP Desktop 9.10 is already end of life for full support (meaning no bug fixes) and only partially supported at this point.

Thanks,

Ben

I don't feel decrypting and re-encrypting will help.  This happens on both of the E6520's and if I re-image and re-encrypt the issue is still present.  I believe it is an issue directly with the new Dell laptops specifically and not with a specific version of PGP desktop.  These machines do not have the Optimus.  You mention supported\non-supported.  This was never an issue with PGP in the past.  I'll try the 10.1 update though.

Regards

please let us know the results of that as well. Unfortunately, we still haven't identified the root cause for this issue. The best thing we have is the workaround that is shown as the accepted answer that details turning off the Nvidia optimus setting in the bios. I have also seen it referenced as "switchable graphics" and switching it to discrete does the same thing.

I will try to update this forum as soon as we have a solution, but we are looking at a possibility of several weeks till a fix is addressed currently. They are still having problems trying to reproduce the issue on a new Dell E5420 model that we have available.

No offense, but every software vendor only supports certain platforms and OS versions for each product release. Software changes all the time, Symantec is also trying to standardize on how many release versions we haev out there that are fully supported and for which platforms. This makes it easier to release quality products and more testing done on each version of the product.

My point was that if you are running Windows 7, you should be on PGP Desktop 9.12 at least. Since that was the first supported release of PGP Desktop for Windows 7. But if you are running Windows 7 SP1, you should be on PGP Desktop 10.1.2 which is the first supported release for Windows 7 SP1.

If you need more information, please look at our release notes for PGP Desktop found here:

PGP Desktop 10.1.x for Windows Release Notes

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC3583
 

PGP Desktop 9.12 for Windows

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC3622
 

If I fire off encryption on the Dell E6520, let it encrypt it gets the courupt issue on reboot.  If I pull the drive out of the laptop and insert it in a Dell E6510 it boot just fine.  I suspect a hard disk controller incompatibilty.  The E6520 has an Intel video set so the Otpimus theroy is shot to hell.  This is no fun at all.

I have 5 of these new Dell Vostro 3550 machines.  Have tried various suggestions and last time encrypted just a partition which I had made in disk manager after a complete windows7pro reinstall.  No obvious optimus in bios....  Same old same old... 

Any help gratefully received.  Tried to set up a case in Mysupport but failed at the last hurdle as the system informed me that the system had encountered an error when I entered the 12 figure (3 groups of 4 separated by hyphens) Support ID recently supplied by Symantec. 

To make matters worse Dell will not deal with me either as the TAG ID supplied is not recognized by Dell so I am stuck with a problem that no-one is likely to help me with and 5 employees still using their old failing computers.....

Development has found a way to reproduce the problem with PGP Desktop 10.1.x and 10.1.2.x as well. This means that it's getting lots of attention from the developers. They are actively looking at a fix. I wish I could give an exact ETA. But they are still deep into debugging the problem to find where the issue lies.

I'm very sorry, and we know that this is big impactor to our clients. We have many clients who are affected by this issue and it's a top priority with a company wide escalation within Symantec/PGP right now.

It is pure speculation but I see it as either the processor or the chipset.  At first I thought it could be the disck controller but after some mor thought it seemed more unlikely.

As I stated earlier if I encrypt a drive in an E6520 with an i5 and intel video I get the corruption message.

If I remove the hard disk from the E6520 with an i5 and insert it in an E6510 with a Duo core processor it boots up just fine. 

The OS version is a technicality in my mind because the PGP boot loaded comes up well before any OS boot.

I am hoping a future BIOS update will fix but suspect PGP will have to move sooner than Dell or Intel.

Unitl either Intel or PGP come up with a fix i'm not purchasing anothe laptop because it seems to be many models affected.

I am on Universal server 3.12 and PGP desktop version 10.1.2

Win XP SP3

Intel Video

The prevailing theory is that the Intel IGP as part of the Sandy Bridge architecture is the culprit as disabling the IGP on the 6520 circumvents the problem with PGP WDE.

I fail to see how the theory has been "shot to hell."  If your 6520 with no discrete video doesn't work you can't confirm say one way or the other that the theory is wrong.  If you had a discrete video card & had Optimus turned off and then you still had the issue I would say the theory is suspect.

FYI, the 6510 uses the Intel QM57 chipset (aka Ibex Peak) from a year ago.  The 6520 uses the QM67 chipset (aka Cougar Point).

At this point anything is possible but I don't see how it could be the hard disk controller given the symptoms (also note the previous post where the user tried RAID, AHCI, and ATA mode with not change - I also tried RAID & AHCI as it came defaulted to RAID mode and I had changed it to AHCI mode - I changed it back & forth to confirm that wasn't the issue).

The behavior of this bug points directly to the intel IGP as the culprit. I have provided the dev team your feedback on the chipset revisions. I think they may start testing that chipset with PGP desktop as well to see what we get there.

What version of PGP?

Do these have the discrete video card (Radeon HD6630M)?

If yes, is there an option in the BIOS to only use the Radeon (it may only use it if installed - not sure how it works with AMD/ATI cards as Optimus is Nvidia's mark)?

I'm just glad they finally were able to reproduce it :-)

FYI, Symantec is aware of the issue (I spoke to support earlier today).

First things first: please do not post in the Mac thread I linked to earlier.  Please keep all PC (non-Mac) posts for this specific problem in this thread.  If you have another issue entirely, please start a new thread.

The support guy also said that they have received a lot of calls this week and that the info has been forwarded to engineering.  They initially were delayed in investigating it due to lack of hardware to duplicate the problem but apparently that's no longer an issue.

So, the good news is the programmers are aware of the issue.

The bad news is that it could be some time before a fix is available (I don't want to get anyone's hopes up).

He also said there's a KB article that will go up soon about the issue (still being written).

Lastly, please keep in mind that my comments here are NOT an official statement from Symantec.  While I'm reporting what I remember being told I could be wrong, it's subject to change, your mileage may vary, etc., etc.

Oh, and it's too bad the this thread was marked as "Solved" because it is still an open issue.  The workaround I reported for users with a discrete video card isn't an option for those that only have the IGP and they appear to be stuck.

May be worth checking hardware manufactures to find out if their revision of the chipset may be affected:

http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2011/01/31/intel-identifies-chipset-design-error-implementing-solution

I have Intel graphics and many models of the Dell line.  The only Laptop I have that has this issue is the E6520 i5 Sandy bridge.  All Duo core Laptops boot just fine.  As a matter of fact if I remove the encrypted drive from the E6520 that will not boot and insert it in any Duo core Laptop it will boot fine (E6500, E6510). 

Issue is with the processor\Chipset.  It has to be.

I was thinking about this just shortly after posting. If it were a BSOD or another OS boot related issue. It could very well be due to the video graphics driver. We have actually seen many issues with the graphics driver ourselves.

In regards to this issue with it failing in stage 2 of the boot process though. I am 99% sure this is as chipset and/or CPU issue as others have been reporting. I wouldn't rule out BIOS either though. We have seen some issues in the past with Insyde H10 bios and AMIBIOS causing these types of issues. I would keep an eye out for bios updates from manfucturers to see if they address this at all as well.

I know that PGP WDE is not the only whole disk encryption product affected by these issues as well. I have seen Checkpoint and TrueCrypt users reporting similar problems on their systems.

Hi -

we also need a fix for the;

The Vostro 3550

Intel i3-2310M (2.1GHz)

Windows7 professional 64 bit

Intel integrated graphics media accelerator HD

Fingerprint reader, but not installed

PGP used was the latest version 10.1.2 for 64 bit

Yes - I believe it is HM67 chipset family 

will be keeping a eye for a fix, but as I have now registered and posted a comment, will I get a email informing me of any new comments or replies????

I don't have an exact ETA yet. I'm only told that it will be "soon". We have tested the fix on other machines and the results look good. We are in the process of integrating this fix into another release. I will be keeping forum members up to speed when the update comes out. One thing to note is that you do need a software support contract to be able to obtain the update.
 

We will provide you with download access when the fix is available. So stay tuned. 

Those people who have commented about whether they will receive emails when this thread or updated or not just need to make sure that they are subscribed to the thread. You can do so by posting a comment, at the bottom before you hit "Save". There should be a "Subscriptions" section where you can make sure that you are subscribed to the thread to receive updates on this forum thread when new comments/updates are made.

Message me and I can probably help you with your Mysupport access or at least get you in touch with somebody who can help.

Could those individuals/companies that have an existing case# with Symantec on this issue please contact your technician and ask them for the service pack download. We need to provide access to the service pack for this fix.

If you don't have a symantec case# yet. Please submit one at http://my.symantec.com in the subject of the case you could put that you need PGP Desktop 10.1.2 SP2 for the Bootguard fix.

Thanks,

Ben

The following articles are available on the Symantec Knowledge Base regarding the issue:

Article on the issue:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH158600

Article on the diagnosis:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH160346

Hello, we appear to be experiencing this issue on a few Dell Latitude E6520s (No additional  video card) Win 7 Pro x64. We use  WDE Workgroup edition 10.1.1 and it works fine on  all our older laptops. I have managed to download the WDE Controller software 10.1.2 from fileconnect and built new install files but still get the same issue. We have bronze support from PGP (When it was PGP corporation) but I cannot log a support case through Symantec Any suggestions?

Paul, I was in the same boat.  I had to open a customer support case so they could assign me a technical contact id.  Once they get you that, you should be able to put in the tech support case.  I was not, though.  When tried to use that ID, while logged in to my Symantec account, it said that id wasn't valid with my account.  I ended up having to make the phone call to open the tech support case. 

Paul,

The WDE controller software requires a hotfix to be able to deploy the PGP Desktop 10.1.2 SP2 clients from it. We have not yet released this hotfix to our cutomers yet.

Ben

I need to download the recovery bootg.iso to get onto my pc so I can try the new service pack. I don't know which version of 10.1 I have on the pc. Does it matter which image I download?

I need some company details like your company id number, order number, email address associated with the account for me to supply a link for the recovery ISO. Yes it matters which image you download, if you are affected by this Stage 2 - initializing loader bug the only version out currently that has the fix for this is 10.1.2 SP2 (Build 26). If you are on any other release of the recovery ISO it won't work on your new hardware.

Ben

Boot the Laptop to SystemRescueCD, then setup the drive as an iSCSI target.  Attach the drive with the built-in iSCSI initiator in Windows 7.  Works better with a Gigabit connection.

If anyone is interested, I can can give a step-by-step.

I don't have a problem positing the link of where to download the service pack. it's https://pdc.pgp.com but you have to request access to the service pack through support. this is due to export restrictions and legal requirements. We need to verify WHO is downloading our software since we are dealing with crypto.

Please don't create comments that appear to be more for the Titan support system.  Connect is used to communitcate with customers, so please "communicate" with them as opposed to putting case notes on a forum.

Thank you,

Eric

I have PGP Whole Disk Encryption 10.1 which worked for a couple of weeks. Recently I turned on my laptop and input the passphrase (which previously worked).  I got an error message:

Error loading operating system

Press key to reboot

no matter what I press, I get a window that says

bootguard

and then nothing else happens.  I understand there may be a patch for this.  Before I go through the lengthy process of reformatting my hard drive, I would like to try the patch.

... our PGP US and desktops cannot communicate with each other. The desktop clients are unable to contact the pgpserver to get policies and for the server to manage their keys. This is only happening on machines that have the sandy bridge processors still. Does anyone have any knowledge surrounding this?

What version number and build is your PGP Universal Server on?

Hello,

I have some news notebooks Dell E6420 with Windows 7 64 bits in my company and i am having some problems when i reboot them after installed the PGP. In the boot appears an error "initializing loader".

I tried to run the PGPDesktop v10.1.2 SP3 and install again, the error appears again. Can you help me?

Thanks.

Lobera

That booting from the recovery CD a second time (after installing PGP Desktop) can sometimes resolve this issue. I would try that, you may also wish to verify that the version of PGP Desktop installed in Windows is reporting the correct version by booting from the recovery CD. Then launching PGP Desktop and going to help ---> about PGP

PGP Desktop 10.2 and PGP Universal Server 3.2 is generally available now. It includes the fix for this "sandy bridge" Stage 2 - initializing loader bug as well as many other bug fixes.

You can download it off fileconnect here:

https://fileconnect.symantec.com

If you have a serial number that starts with an "M" then use that. Otherwise, you may have to go here:

https://licensing.symantec.com

Then follow the attached PDF for instructions on downloading GA releases (ignore the part about obtaining service packs, as that is no longer relevant for this GA release available on fileconnect

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/resources/sites/BUSINESS/content/live/TECHNICAL_SOLUTION/163000/TECH163224/en_US/Obtain%20PGP%20Desktop.pdf

I have a laptop that has been affected by the issue identified in TECH160346. I am trying unsuccessfully to obtain the recovery tool so that I can get laptop working again.  I am not able to install the 10.2 version until I recover my laptop.

After spending 30 minutes being passed between different agents none of which I could understand or hear due to poor telephone line I have been told I cannot get this unless I upgrade my support. I asked to be passed to customer support and I got thorugh to another agent who I could not hear and was then cut off!!

I would appreciate help with this as I cannot currently use my new laptop which is my main business machine.

Many thanks in anticipation.