TI 10.0 and PGP Whole Disk Encryption

As part of a requirement to access my LAN at work, my laptop must be protected with PGP Whole Disk Encryption. At boot up, PGP takes over and you have to enter a Pass Phrase before you can log-on to windows (using XP Professional, SP2). Is TI compatible with PGP Whole Disk Encryption?

 

Encryption has come up previously on the forum. Suggest you search the forum for: Disk Encryption

 

Thanks. I've reviewed all of the pertinent threads and understand my options. But, if I may, I'd like to ask additional questions, since the discussions seem to be at the 30,00 ft. level.

1. I suspect that with raw, sector by sector imaging, the images aren't compressed and that a dedicated external drive of the same size or larger is required. Is this correct?

2. Could more than one raw image be stored on an external drive, if that drive were large enough?

3. Does any one have any experience with restoring images of this type and should they be considered low, medium or high risk?

Thanks to anyone who can offer clarification.

 

1. I don't really know but I might speculate that the sector-by-sector method determines what needs to be backed up (the whole thing) but I don't see why that means compression techniques couldn't be added to the data. Note that a lot of the space savings on an active drive come from TI not backing up the pagefile or a hibernation file if it exists. A small placeholder is put in the image for those files. You would lose this space saving method since all sectors are being done.

2. Since an image file is an image file I don't see why several can't be put on the same drive, space permitting.

3. No experience and haven't heard anything either.

Why not try the trial version of TI10?

 

I actually just upgraded to TI 10, right before I was forced to put PGP 9.5 on my laptop. I don't wish to experiment and lose data that is quite valuable as well as quite sensitive. TI has always worked for me and worked well. But, now with this BS requirement for WDE I'm forced to follow, I'm left with very poor options it seems for Image Backup/Image Restoration. Anyway, thanks for the information.

 

I obviously don't know the specifics of your data but from what I've seen happening I wouldn't call it a BS requirement.

Stolen notebook computers with unencrypted data is a huge problem not because of the trivial cost of the machine but because of the data. There was recent case of thousands of US veterans having their personal data stolen because of a notebook theft. Same has happened to medical records and also corporate trade secrets.

Where I used to work you didn't even return most drives for warranty replacement if it couldn't be reliably wiped and that was usually unlikely in the case of a bad drive.

One might wonder that if this is a corporate requirement then what is the corporate recommendation for backups?

 

Hello leehigdon3,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that in case with drive encryption software it could be possible that Acronis True Image will not be able to recognize the file system on a disk/partition and, therefore, sector-by-sector approach will be used to create disk/partition image. As a result, this image will be equal in size to the disk being imaged, as there will be no data compression.

Please also have a look at this thread <TI9 and Encryption> to find the information on how Acronis True Image handles encrypted hard drive/folders.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

That thread does not address whole disk encryption, only encrypted files and folders. Anyway, I understand what I must do and will implement that plan.

 

If the office would let you instal another hard drive in the laptop, do that and clone the original to it. Then experiment with the cloned drive.

 

I'm planning to try something similar with an external drive.

 

how would you clone the drive in the laptop? that's what i want to do and i also have pgp whole drive encryption.

 

Guys I have a full circle concept.

I use winmagic www.winmagic.com

I can make an image in windows of encrypted partitions and trueimage sees the file system so I have all the benefits.

When i want to restore I boot Bartpe with the winmagic securedoc plugin and restore my image(which is unencrypted ofcourse) and it get encrypted on the fly. Restore time maybe 10 percent longer. No encryption needed afterwards. Reboot system and your good to go. You can even maken offline images from bartpe with alle the benefits of full or inc or diff

winmagic securedoc is a winner ;-)

The unencrypted image can be saved an an USB drive which is encrypted with the same software. So you are save and flexible all the way around

 

Hello nlehrer,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that when Acronis True Image doesn't recognize the filesystem on a drive (which is usually the case with whole drive encryption), it will perform the operation in sector by sector mode, copying the drive "as is". Please see the respective User's Guide for detailed instructions for the cloning operation.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Winmagic and FDE(FULL Disk) encryption Acronis does recognize the file system ;-)