System Halted! Safeguard Easy 5.50.1 and 5.50.8

Hi Alpina,

thank you very much for bringing up this one.

With regards to the screen shot this seems to an problem with the available virtual memory of the machine. Furthermore this could as well be an issue with an internal controller: Therefore please be so kind and double check if there is newer BIOS version available for that machine or if there any settings with regards to the USB / Disk setup that can be configured in the BIOS.

Should these things not solve the issue as well please be so kind and open a new support call since we will then have to forward this issue to our QA department. When opening a ticket please be so kind and provide information if you would be willing to send us a machine if required.

Thank you very much!

Regards

Dan

Hi,

I've tried almost anything solving this problem. I have also contacted your official support and they are examining the problem. Here's a brief list of things I tried.

- Updated latest BIOS

- Tried all of the hotkeys

- Disabled all USB ports and integrated memory card reader from BIOS

- Disconnected even DVD-drive

- Tried the 32-bit version of SafeGuard also

- Tried modifying the IRPStackSize

None of the above operations have any affect, the error remains the same. However I think that the problem lies in FreeBSD that is used to boot up SafeGuard. There's no support in FreeBSD to Marvell's SAS Controller. I even tried installing the newest build of FreeBSD and it's installer can't find the SAS disk. There are many supported SAS controllers in FreeBSD but I can't see Marvell on those lists.

I Also tried disabling the SAS disk and SAS controller from the BIOS, attached a SATA disk and installed Windows 7 Pro x64 to it and tried Safeguard on the SATA disk. Everything went smoothly and the disk was encrypted. So the problem is the SAS disk and it's controller. I don't know which version of FreeBSD is used to boot up SafeGuard and don't know how much customizations there are made by Sophos, but it seems like there's no support to that specific Marvell's SAS controller.

We're moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 and this is slowing things down a bit. Hopefully there will soon be a version that supports Marvell's SAS controller. In the meantime we're buying SATA disks to these workstations. Performance is not that good of course with SATA disks.

It's also quite interesting that the same hardware works with Utimaco Safeguard Easy 4.50.2.17 that we're using in our Windows XP computers. That version has no problem encrypting SAS disks. Too bad it doesn't have Windows 7 support.

I'll let you know if Sophos's official support comes up with something!

Hi Alpina

thank you very much for getting back with these intensive test result. Glad to hear that you are having some sort of workaround at the moment.

Yes I can see that the case is currently under investigation and it might indeed be a problem with the free BSD not supporting the Marvell controller. However, investigation is still ongoing for this one although I don't have a timeline.

With regards to your question why SafeGuard Easy does not fail to boot the reason is that SafeGuard Easy 4.x does use a different technology to initialize the Pro Boot Authentication - not being based on free BSD. This method obviously does not care about the controller but at the same time you don't have the extended functional range that you have in SafeGuard Enterprise.

Regards

Dan

Hello,

I am getting an identical problem wih Safeguard 6 Enterprise on a Dell Latitude E6230.

I just wondered if a workaround was ever released for this problem or what caused the initial halting of the system?

Many thanks

Daniel

Hello, 

I am having identical issue in a Dell Latitude E6230. Is there any solution? I would really apreciate it. 

If not maybe there will be a way to restore the laptop to the original state. Something like this:

http://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/knowledgebase/110653.aspx

Any help will be welcome!

Hi Daniel, Alfred,

the referenced issue was resolved with the latest release (6.00.1) of SafeGuard Enterprise / SafeGuard Easy.

Regards,

Chris

Hi Chris,

The installation that i made was using sophos safeguard 6. The issue happened after installing the preinstallation sw, then the client and afterwards the personal configuration. It needed to reboot and bam, system halted!

Really strange, how could i restore the laptop to its original state?

Thanks

Hi Alfred,

SafeGuard Enterprise / SafeGuard Easy brings a tool called SGNRollback.exe that helps to repair an unsuccessful endpoint installation. The tool is located on the installation media in the "Tools\SGNRollback tool folder"

The usage is described within the Tools manual (ssg_60_tog_eng_tools.pdf) or in the following KBA

How to use SGNRollback.exe to repair a failed SafeGuard Enterprise Device Encryption installation.

http://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/knowledgebase/110653.aspx

Please make sure to install the SafeGuard 6 Service Release 1 (version 6.00.1) when doing a reinstallation.

Cheers,

Chris