M4800 and Encrypted SSD - Needs Bios Fix?

Question

I recently purchased a Dell M4800 configured with SSD. I am using an Intel 530 mSata as the Boot drive with OS and the included Samsung for data. These SSDs have built in full hardware encryption and the bios supposedly supports this feature. When I set the drive password in the bios I am presented with a text box where I enter the password before bios can post. I am running a dual boot system, Windows 7 and Ubuntu and everything works as it should. . except for when the system goes to suspend. When the OS resumes from suspend, there is no option to reenter the password for the encrypted drive, and since apparently the SSD has been power cycled, one is required. The result is a system than can no longer read from SSD, rendering it useless until a hard reboot. This is an _unacceptable_ problem and I am wondering If there is some experience here that can demonstrate how this is supposed to work. I have used bios level security before that would lock the keyboard and mouse on resume with no prompt, but one just needed to authenticate with the password which the bios captured. Thanks!  **rant** This is the first time I have chosen to buy new from dell and overall the quality of support has not impressed me at all. I have found no pathway to report an issue to engineering, and it seems that Dell is not interested in customer feedback about any aspect of their product. I am very disappointed that Dell engineers have chosen to limit the M4800 configured with QHD+ screen to a only the dedicated GPU, and thus reducing battery life greatly when compared with switched graphics modes like Optimus. Dell Technical Support informed me that 'dell engineers determined that their customers didn't want battery life when buying the QHD+ screen' Ok, who did they ask? **end of rant**

logan91691 · Answer

Absolutely.  This function is 100% essential for those who travel overseas for work, and have sensitive data at hand.  To the OP, I had some luck last year (not with the 4800) using cryptfs during the boot process.  I was using an SSD.  Would you be willing to try that route until Dell can provide a reasonable response?  I might still have my notes on what I did to set it all up.

wispman · Answer

Does anyone else plan to use this currently nonfunctional encryption feature?

wispman · Answer

Thanks, I know I can use inefficient cpu taxing whole drive software based encryption, but that defeats the whole purpose of why we buy a drive with hardware integrated encryption. These drives by the way always encrypt the data sent to the chips, the only thing bios does is allows the drive to shift the password storage from the physical drive to your brain and it then just stores your password hash.

Apparently I am not the only dell user trying to alert the manufacturer of this issue with no success.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19536177.aspx

augustosisa · Answer

Hi, near a year after you ask this question, I would to ask you now.
How was your experience with dual boot (Windows 7 and Ubuntu ) with this system? There was some issues with SSD and HDD in dual boot.

wispman · Answer

Hi Augustosisa, I've been running dual boot with both OS's located on msata drive since installation and the m4800 does great. I am running an additional sata ssd in the main drive bay and I have no problems with this setup.

I also will mention here that not long after my issue with using SSD based encryption with bios password, a bios update was issued that resolved the major part of the issue, but not in a way that I would consider optimal.

The behavior is now that you need to enter your encrypted drive password on boot, and then it seems to save it in bios so that when you resume from sleep or hibernation the password is not required. I consider this a security flaw as it is apparently storing the password somewhere in bios, and it requires you to do a complete shutdown of the system in order to secure the drive.

Maybe there should be an option in bios that allows you to change this behavior, as I imagine some would not like to be bothered with password reentry every time their computer has gone to sleep, but I would like to see the capability of the system to require manual entry of the password each time the drive requires it.

Admiral Smith · Answer

I noticed when the Windows operating system has a problem with suspending that may mean the OS was not authentic to the system. No big deal. The only problem is ownership to storage drive technologies. The only way is to reverse time and enter a password in the TPM security module before some other guy does. No biggie. Lock down your BIOS on your dell to system level passwords and signed bios updates. Become the paranoid little evil badger like I am.

*five minutes later*
Download a 90 day evaluation of Windows 8.1 enterprise from Microsoft and maybe put it on an USB drive and keep installing it every 90 days. Annoying yes, but I usually ending refreshing my machines before that so might as well keep with the evaluation editions.
:emotion-2:

sofij · Answer

Hi wispman, I am having the same issue and have upgraded my BIOS to the latest version (11) but that didn't fix the problem. Which version of the BIOS fixed this problem for you.   Thanks.

wispman · Answer

Hi Sofij,  I think the fix was in A07, but I am running A09 now without issues. I will also comment that I have seen dell bios get toasted after a version downgrade.

Locked Topics – Laptops General

M4800 and Encrypted SSD - Needs Bios Fix?

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