Hi,
You wont be able to change how the POA acts without first logging into Windows - however - you should still be able to boot into the Sophos recovery disk without going through the POA.
All you need to do is boot to CD via the boot menu in the BIOS or change the boot order of devices so the CD is has priority before the HDD.
Once you have booted into the CD you can click on "KeyRecovery" and perform a challenge response using a virtual client.
9. Write down the challenge code:
10. On the encryption console click Tools > Recovery
11. Select “Virtual Client”and enter in the name of the virtual client. (In this example VC1)
12. Select “Key requested” and click “Next”
13. Select “Recovery key for Safeguard Enterprise Client managed
14. Click “Find Now” to list all of the encryption keys available. You will be able to find the key for the laptop you are on by finding a key matching the hostname under the “Key Name” column. Failing that the “Key ID” will also match the key displayed in step 8.
15. Select the key and click ok. Then “Next”.
16. Type in the challenge code you wrote down earlier
17. A Response code will be generated
18. On the laptop enter the response into the response field
19. You now have full access to the hard disk drive.
In your situation you wouldnt be able to re-install windows but if you needed to change a specicif file or setting and knew the command line to do it you could use the built in CMD to make the changes.
At the very least you could copy the data on the drive and then format the disk and reinstall windows.
If it helps you could always remove the hard drive and plug it into to another device with Sophos installed and assign the key for the broken laptop to it as well.
