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Jerome SlaughterFlag for United States of America

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Can you encrypt an External USB Hard drive with PGP?

Hello Experts,

I've used PGP encryption to encrypt internal hard drives (c: drives) for different machines but never had to use PGP to encrypt External USB Hard drives. Is this possible?
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Michael Best
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"Is this possible?"
The answer is Yes.

Limitations are discussed in this link:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/it-possible-encrypt-pgp-wde-external-drives-eg-attached-usb-port-or-esata-port
"with PGP" means? What program are you running, Symantec desktop encryption 10 or some old PGP variant (which)?
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Symantec Drive Encryption 10.3.2 is the version i'm using. Here is what i've been able to accomplish so far:

1. I intalled Symantec Drive Encryption 10.3.2  (PGP) successfully
2. PGP was able see the C: drive (OS drive) and the external drive at the same time
3. Encrypted the C: drive first
4. Now trying to encrypt the external drive but PGP does not recognize the external drive now. The Windows OS does recognize the external drive but not PGP. Is it because the external drive is not encrypted? How can I get PGP to recognize the external drive in order for me to encrypt it?
Try the command line pgpwde.exe - sometimes the GUI behaves outright strange!
pgpwde.exe in the command line per what path? c: drive or what?

I did a search for pgpwde.exe on the c: drive and found nothing so I don't know what path to give the command in the command line.
found pgpwde.exe in the following locations:

C:\Program Files\PGP Corporation\PGP Desktop
C:\Program Files\PGP Corporation\PGP Desktop\WinPE

cd'd to each of the paths above and ran pgpwde.exe for both. Nothing happened. Relaunched PGP Desktop GUI and the external drive is still not showing.
Type
pgpwde --help | more
in the command line I only get help options under the:

cd C:\Program Files\PGP Corporation\PGP Desktop\WinPE              

anything specific in the help I should be looking for?
Of course you need to start it from the folder, not "solo", as it is not in the system path.
C:\Program Files\PGP Corporation\PGP Desktop\pgpwde.exe --help |more
gives you all commands. The encrypt command can be targeted at the other disk, I suppose. Have done that before to encrypt two disks at a time, a thing the stupid GUI could not do, even in version 10.3.x.
1. In the command line I am not able to get help options at the following path:

C:\Program Files\PGP Corporation\PGP Desktop\pgpwde.exe --help |more

2. However, in the command line, I am able to see the help options at the following path:

C:\Program Files\PGP Corporation\PGP Desktop\WinPE pgpwde.exe --help |more

3. At the path in # 2, I did the following commands separately:
    pgpwde --status --disk 0 (gave status for the c: drive)
    pgpwde --status --disk 1 (did not see the external drive)

    pgpwde --show-config --disk 1 (showed config for c: drive)
    pgpwde --show-config --disk 0 (could not see the external drive)

   pgpwde --info --disk 0 (showed info for the c: drive)
   pgpwde --info --disk 1 (could not see the external drive)
   
   pgpwde --enum (displayed disk designations for disk 0 but not could not find disk 1)

is this is a known problem for Symantec PGP?
So the commands you executed sometimes see c: as disk 0 and sometimes as disk 1? That's strange. No, did not have this problem before, there's something odd going on. Maybe the best would be some reset of your second disk, like backing it up, formatting it and the encrypt it and replay the backup to it.
You misunderstood my point of my last post. Executing the commands that I put in my post always recognized disk 0 as the c: drive which is encrypted by PGP.

Disk 1 is not encrypted and is not recognized by PGP in the GUI or via the same commands in the command line.

As mentioned in past post... The Windows OS DOES recognize Disk 1 (in disk management) as the external drive that i'm trying to encrypt. My problem is that PGP does not recognize Disk 1 (external drive) at all therefore I cannot encrypt it.
I see. Your lines read different:
pgpwde --status --disk 0 (gave status for the c: drive)... pgpwde --show-config --disk 1 (showed config for c: drive)
that's why I thought what I wrote.
Nevertheless my recommendation stands.

I worked with PGP 10 for nearly 5 years now. Second disks have always been problematic, this software is buggy.
apologize for the typo. now I see why you answered the way you did. i will attempt to do your last suggestion. But before I do ... do you think it would matter if I decrypt the c: drive, reboot to see if pgp then recognizes both drives (c: drive and external drive) as it did originally? If it does recognize both drives, will PGP let me encrypt both drives at the same time?
To be honest, PGP has sometimes been so annoying with second drives that I gave up and used a second encryption (disk cryptor) for the secondary drive. So: no, I don't think it will make a difference, if PGP decides not to like the second one, you would only be 100% sure if you installed fresh :|
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Was not able to resolve my issue with the answer/product I intended to but was able to accomplish what I needed with another product/workaround.