PGP Whole Disk Encryption for Mac OS X

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Symantec Products

Issue/Introduction

PGP Whole Disk Encryption Boot Drive Support for Mac OS X

PGP Desktop 9.9 supports PGP Whole Disk Encryption of the boot drive on Intel based Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 systems. The software can be managed by PGP Universal, supporting standard WDE WDRT functionality, logging and reporting, and identification of Mac OS X platforms within PGP Universal, permitting the admin to identify whether a device is a Windows or Mac OS X platform. This feature is not compatible with Boot Camp software.

Resolution

PGP Whole Disk Encryption For Mac OS X Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why does the Startup Disk Preferences Pane in Mac OS X display the wrong icon?

When running on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), the Startup Disk Preferences Pane selects the wrong startup disk due to an incompatability with the Apple technology used to provide PGP Desktop with startup disk encryption capability.

However, this incompatibility is corrected with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) the Startup Disk Preferences Pane will show the correct startup disk.

2. Why can't I encrypt the system disk on my PowerBook/PowerMac/iBook/iMac systems?

Encryption of the boot drive is only available on Intel based Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 systems.

Encrypting the system disk requires an Intel based computer booting from a GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk. Therefore, encrypting system disks on PowerPC based Macintosh systems is not supported.

3. Why can't I encrypt my disk? It shows up in the list of disks available, but the disk displays as grayed out.

As indicated in the list, the disk is an Apple Partition Map (APM) disk. PGP Whole Disk Encryption supports GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks and Master Boot Record (MBR) disks. APM disks are not supported using PGP Whole Disk Encryption. To encrypt your disk, you will have to partition your disk as a GPT disk.

Caution: Beware that by partitioning your disk, any data on the disk will be lost. Before partitioning your disk, make sure you backup your data on the disk.

4. Why does the Leopard Installer want to erase my system disk?

The Leopard installer requires a portion of free space following a system volume on your disk. When your disk was encrypted, that free space was used by a boot partition for the PGP BootGuard that allows you to login to your encrypted disk.

To upgrade from Tiger to Leopard or to reinstall Leopard, your must first decrypt your disk. Your disk cannot be used by the Leopard installer if it is encrypted.

Click the following link for more information on resolving this issue: Mac OS X Installer prompts to erase PGP Whole Disk Encrypted boot disk

5. After deleting a partition or resizing partitions on my encrypted disk with Disk Utility, I am unable to boot the system.

The Leopard Disk Utility provides more flexibility for managing disk partitions on the system. Disk Utility completely ignores boot partitions and will delete the partitions completely. Deleting the boot partition will render the system unbootable. Resizing an encrypted system partition is not supported with PGP Whole Disk Encryption.

To resize an encrypted system partition, the disk must be decrypted before resizing the partition. After resizing the partitions you can re-encrypt the disk.

6. After I used Boot Camp Assistant on my encrypted disk, I am unable to boot the system.

The Boot Camp Assistant performs much like Disk Utility. It will resize and move partitions without regard for boot partitions.

Decrypt your disk before installing Boot Camp.

To resize an encrypted system partition, the disk must be decrypted before resizing the partition. After resizing the partitions you can re-encrypt the disk.