Windows machines with two encrypted drives fail to boot when disk 1 is the boot disk

Products

• Symantec Products

Issue/Introduction

 

If a Windows machine running PGP Desktop 10.2.1 MP4 or below has two disks and disk 1 is the boot disk, the machine fails to boot after encrypting both disks.  For example, Windows Disk Management shows disk 0 and disk 1 with disk 0 as E drive and disk 1 as C drive.  Disk 1 is marked as Boot, System and Active:

When you use PGP Desktop to encrypt drive C (disk 1) and reboot, both bootguard and Windows load as expected.

After you encrypt drive E (disk 0) and reboot, the following occurs:

• Bootguard works as expected.
• Windows loads. 
• Almost as soon as Windows has loaded a BSoD (blue screen of death) is displayed.
• The machine immediately reboots.
• Bootguard works as expected.
• The error message Missing operating system is displayed and Windows does not load.

Missing operating system

Cause

PGP Desktop for Windows 10.2.1 MP4 and below is incompatible with machines that have two disks and boot from disk 1 when both disks are encrypted.

Resolution

Upgrade to PGP Desktop 10.2.1 MP5 or above.  You can then encrypt both drives and both bootguard and Windows load as expected.

Note that this solution will not work for systems which have a Windows System Reserved partition on a different drive to the boot drive.  See the related articles below.