External eSATA drive detected as Removable Drive by Symantec Drive Encryption (previously PGP Whole Disk Encryption)

Products

• Symantec Products

Issue/Introduction

An external drive that is connected to a computer through a hard drive caddy via an eSATA port can sometimes be detected as a removable drive by Symantec Drive Encryption.

The external eSATA drive appears as Removable Media when you open Symantec Drive Encryption and view the list of disks and partitions in PGP Disk.  This can cause the system to apply removable drive policies for that drive. This makes it so you can not use Local Self Recovery on the drive.

 

Note: If you have Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3 or later installed and the external drive is a boot drive, the drive appears as Fixed Disk.

Resolution

Currently using a hard drive caddy via eSATA or any eSATA external drives is not supported as an internal drive and will cause Symantec Drive Encryption to apply removable policies to that drive affecting the policy that is assigned to that drive.

Applies To

Known machines affected:

Dell Latitude E6520

Dell Latitude E6530

Lenovo ThinkPad W520