[Hard disk now corrupt]

Are you saying Cheese, that recovery of a corrupt SafeBoot disk depends on whose chequebook was used to buy it?

 

I thought I knew Simon as well, but was a little disappointed with his reply of "sorry, you're fcuked".

 

If you're saying that a solution to this problem exists, but is only available to enterprise customers, then please state this in your reply.

You are correct, it is only available to enterprise customers.

[Hard disk now corrupt]

Thanks for the suggestions Cheese.

 

Unfortunately, the IT dept are not going to be of much help here. Safeboot was a private purchase. We also have no agreements with McAfee for support, as we don't appear to use any of their products. The helpdesk have no experience with encryption software as no-one outside of IT has this type of software installed.

 

The person I spoke to at Safeboot was Simon Hunt, their Chief Technology Officer. He told me that without the recovery disk there was nothing I could do. Perhaps I caught him at a bad time and was given the 'easy' answer? As I'm still here, you might conclude that I haven't given up hope yet - despite the official verdict.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I did come across references to this 'SafeTech' recovery application, but without the password required to run it, I am no closer to finding a solution. If you have any suggestions on how I might obtain this password, then please feel free to point me in the right direction.

 

PS - You are correct, $350m. I mixed my $/? signs up and did an unnecessary currency conversion.

Ah, yes, if it was a private purchase, then unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done to be honest. And I am familiar with Simon

[Hard disk now corrupt]

 

McAfee now has a windows version of SafeTech which runs from a BartPE, but you still need the daily authorization code to get past the encryption.

It's called Wintech, and it's a bootable CD, it's not used from Windows. And yes, the Code of the day is still required.

[Hard disk now corrupt]

I'm running SafeBoot v5.2 on a Dell laptop and have had training from McAfee on it. Unfortunately, there is no way to gain access to an encrypted machine with out the daily access code from McAfee or a valid login ID on the machine with the SafeBoot client installed. This is client-server technology and a server administrator can reset the SafeBoot p/w if needed. From the SafeBoot Admin console, there is an option to decrypt the machine, but it has to be able to synch to the SafeBoot server to do that.

 

Neither resetting a p/w or having the daily code from McAfee will solve the problem of defraggler moving the safeboot.fs which sounds strange to me. I know of no way to move it back, if it actually was moved. McAfee SafeBoot tech support may help. In the admin guide I have the # is 877-330-2424 and supportus@safeboot.com I'm not sure who is responding to that or if it's from Control Break or McAfee... Good luck. I'm betting on a fdisk and reinstall solution is all you're going to be able to do. If that's the case, McAfee has a BartPE with WinTech (which requires the daily access code) to get you into a functioning encrypted hard drive to save data off before rebuilding.

Again, he can have his Safeboot admin perform an Emergency Boot, this issue CAN be corrected, and also, the supportus@safeboot.com is no longer a valid email address.

[Huge BUG]

Did you install a SP3 beta at one time?

 

Did you un-install the beta before installing the GA release?

 

All of my systems indicate SP3 without any beta indication

 

 

If I remember correctly a SP3 beta really messed up my XP Home system and the only way to recover was to FORMAT and re-install XP Home then install all of the updates.

 

I ordered the SP2 CD from Microsoft and used that to speed up the installation but there still was about 60 more patches to get to the current SP2.

 

I now have a SP3 CD that I ordered in case I have to go through this process again.

I format this machine sometimes once a month, and the last time it was the official download from WU.

 

I uninstalled it this morning and installed a new install and it's showing the correct version now.

[Hard disk now corrupt]

It may be of help to the original poster if you drop him a pm perhaps via the forum.

 

I'm sure he would be glad of even a glimmer of hope.

I'll do that when I get home tonight

[Hard disk now corrupt]

The support for his version of safeboot is limited now as he said.

If his IT people still support it, they can do this, even with limited support from customer service. They need a Safetech disk, a code of the day, and if they know how to do the steps, it takes 10 min or so to get it back up and running.

 

I have had to deal with this software in my profession for close to 2 years, I am very familiar with how it works and what needs to be done

[Huge BUG]

Need to clarify this, the partition doesn't get deleted, but the drive letter disappears and the drive is no longer a active partition until i reformat it and assign it drive letter. I will try to test this and get screen shots of before and after.

[Hard disk now corrupt]

Cheese I suggest you read all the thread.

 

He is /was using encryption. No such option as emergency boot available to him.

I know what he is using, and yes, for a 92H, there IS an "emergency boot" option, he need to talk to his IT department and find out who supports the Safeboot. They can call, get a "code of the day" and perform this and it will correct this, the reason the 92H came up is because he did use this utility, any third party utility, unless those files are excluded, will always bring up that particular error.

[Huge BUG]

Also, it says my version is Beta even though it's the same version number....

[Huge BUG]

I use Defraggler on my XP Home system that has an 80GB hard drive partitioned into two 40GB partitions and I have not had a problem like you describe.

 

What operating system are you running?

Windows XP Pro

[Hard disk now corrupt]

Hi

 

I have a small problem. Ran Defraggler last night, now my PC won't boot up.

 

After a couple of hours Googling, I think I've found the cause of the problem. There are a couple of system files which should never be moved (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/227350) -

 

> Moving the following files (if present) can cause desktop problems:

>

> Safeboot.fs

> Safeboot.csv

> Safeboot.rsv

> Bootsec.doc

 

As the error message reads "Safeboot has been corrupted (error 92h)", I presume it relates to the safeboot.fs file referred to above. This message is shown before any attempt to load Windows.

 

Could somebody please tell me if it's possible to move this safeboot.fs file back to its original location?

In order to correct this issue, you will need to perform an emergency boot. Also, the MS defrag utility does not have this problem as those files are excluded by MS.

[Hard disk now corrupt]

Safeboot is an OTFE program written by CBI. McAfee recently bought them for $750m and claims to have an installed-base of over 5 million users. HP also offers it as an option on its range of laptops.

 

From what I can gather, Safeboot replaces the MBR with its own version. The Safeboot MBR loads the decryption driver which unlocks the drive and allows Windows to start up normally.

 

I am assuming that the modified MBR points to the physical location on the HDD where safeboot.fs is stored. As this file has been moved, the Safeboot MBR does not know where to find it.

 

My theory is that by moving the safeboot.fs file back to its original location, the Safeboot MBR will be able to see it again. However, this relies on -

 

a) It is possible to relocate a file to a specific location on the disk.

 

There is some way to debug the Safeboot MBR to see what address it expects to find the safeboot.fs file located at.

 

Any comments or suggestions on how I go about achieving this would be very welcome.

 

The machine is running Windows XP, and was virus-free a few days ago when last scanned.

350 million...

[Huge BUG]

2 times now, I have run the latest beta version, v1.02.085 and it has DELETED my secondary partition, the first time, I lost GIGS of data and was NOT happy about this, today, I ran it again after that last time, which was months ago, and the thing deleted my D partition AGAIN.

 

WTF is going on here?

 

If this happens again, I am going to have to recommend against using this until issue is looked into and fixed as this is a HUGE bug.