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SG Enterprise encryption - Bad Sectors survey

jb1111

Has anyone here encountered bad sectors on encrypted machines?  I had 2 computers run for 3-4 months, get bad sectors and start crashing or going to a Windows screen with no icons <-you can only power off at this point.  Attempting to fix the bad sectors does not help.  The only thing I've gotten to work is backup the files (assuming I can even get into the system) and destroy the hard disk with Dban or killdisk.  These low level format and, "Zero out" the drive.  Once this 6 hour process is done, I reload Windows.  Chkdsk no longer shows bad sectors and life is good.

Has anyone come up with another approach to bad sectors or other hard drive issues?  I am most concerned this will be a monthly occurance.  Perhaps I could get a utility to report when drives start getting bad sectors?

Thanks.

PS - my SG policy is set to, "Proceed on bad sectors = yes"

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  • 0

    Thanks Dan,

    What I was going to suggest is that knowing the files causing the boot failure, these could have been replaced easily from the WinPE boot disk and then the base machine would have been able to boot normally saving the effort of a reinstall. It sounds like support may not have suggested this option which is a little worrying don't you think?

    Matt

    :5123
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    Hi Matt,

    since I don't know the case and the detailed circumstances how the case was logged I cannot say what has been adviced and what not. However, I strongly believe that the guys have given the relevant information based on the situation.

    Actually we should not try to analyze cases and we cannot analyze cases which we cannot have a closer look into especially since no data was lost which is definitely the most important thing in my oppinion. So far I cannot see any complaint from JB1111 on this one.

    If you or anyone else is concerned about the information or help which they get from support they need to call supprt with their case number and discuss it person to person.

    Regards

    Dan

    :5124
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    Hi.  Sorry for the late response.  I've been quite buried at work.  Sophos directed me to this document for recovery options: http://www.sophos.com/images/kb/108156-Recovery%20in%20SGN.pdf  A few avenues were explored in the process.  I think because one system could not initially boot to the POA, we did use a Master boot restore/repair.  That went well, enabling us to pass the POA.  However since, "User may only boot from hard disk=yes", we HAD to slave the drives.  F12 - Dell BIOS/boot to CD did not help.  Once past the POA and died as Windows attempted to load.  Every Window boot option we chose ended in lockup (failure).

    We have since changed, "User may only boot from hard disk" to be No.  Hopefully that will work (I will test soon).   I was not real happy with losing the laptops but Sophos did a great job helping us recover data.  Thanks for the responses.

    :5129
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    Hi jb1111,

    Do you know if you tried the WinPE route (mentioned in section 5 of the guide you linked to but not described very well in that document)? Basically WinPE is a standalone 'mini' windows environment. Sophos have bolted into this the SGN engine add-on and it should then allow you to boot directly from this (not your HD so pre-POA or any other OS) and then connect to the drive in your machine (slave your drive into WinPE), mount it using the key file data/challenge response etc and then make corrections to the file structure i.e. replace broken files etc without needing to grab all the data off, reinstall etc. In your case, you knew the system files that were broken, so I'm a bit surprised that this relatively quick solution wasn't successful if suggested and am trying to understand why?

    Matt

    :5130
  • 0

    Hi Matt,

    chapter 5 simply describes the procedure of creating a WInPE in case that you don't use the one provided by us. Using the tools is described very detailed in chapter 4 actually.

    Regards

    Dan

    :5131
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    Hi!  I have used the techniques described in Chapter 4 (WinPE).  However, we were not directed to do so for this troubleshooting.  I think because we could get past the POA already.  Maybe it helps booting to alternate media?  That would be cool.  It was frustrating that we could boot to this cd and see the drives but no way to step off to Windows repair cd/folder.  Perhaps with the new setting described earlier, we will be OK next time.  Thanks for all the input.

    :5137
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