Mystical_Ice
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PGP whole disk encryption - interrupted while decrypting, now won't accept passkey
Here's the situation -
I had PGP whole disk encryption on my laptop. I was going to swap the drive out of the laptop for another one, so i started the decryption process. Halfway through, without thinking, i shut the laptop down.
Now when i start it up, it prompts for a password (the bootloader) before loading Windows. As usual, i enter my password in, but i got the error that the passkey was invalid. I even tried taking the disk out of the laptop and plugging it into another computer with PGP desktop installed. Same thing. Tried using the command line tools, etc. but nothing changed.
Finally, i did something i probably shouldn't have - i used the "diskpart clean" command to clean the partitions (saw it online somewhere that it would work). Now i have a drive that windows doesn't even want to mount without formatting it. I fear i made my issue worse.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I had PGP whole disk encryption on my laptop. I was going to swap the drive out of the laptop for another one, so i started the decryption process. Halfway through, without thinking, i shut the laptop down.
Now when i start it up, it prompts for a password (the bootloader) before loading Windows. As usual, i enter my password in, but i got the error that the passkey was invalid. I even tried taking the disk out of the laptop and plugging it into another computer with PGP desktop installed. Same thing. Tried using the command line tools, etc. but nothing changed.
Finally, i did something i probably shouldn't have - i used the "diskpart clean" command to clean the partitions (saw it online somewhere that it would work). Now i have a drive that windows doesn't even want to mount without formatting it. I fear i made my issue worse.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
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Hi.
Sorry, but you totally missed to couch in terms what you are trying to achieve :)
Are you trying to simply format the drive and reuse it elsewhere? Than simply connect it to the new system and format it. Or are you trying to recover data?
Edit: by the way: PGP allows you to shutdown the laptop at any time during en- or decryption. So unless you did not forcefully switch the power off, this problem should not have occured, it could be a bug in PGP or simply bad luck.
Sorry, but you totally missed to couch in terms what you are trying to achieve :)
Are you trying to simply format the drive and reuse it elsewhere? Than simply connect it to the new system and format it. Or are you trying to recover data?
Edit: by the way: PGP allows you to shutdown the laptop at any time during en- or decryption. So unless you did not forcefully switch the power off, this problem should not have occured, it could be a bug in PGP or simply bad luck.
As a last resort you can try the PGP Bootguard CD. If it starts, i am afraid it coould take days, but there is no gurantee it will start. I accidentally turned one off during encryption, it did restart but took much longer.
We have a had a couple of corrupted installs and the Bootguard cd was able to decrytpt after about 4 days.
Hopefully you have access to this CD, if not here is downloads for 10.
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=landing&key=59285