Preliminary Info:
What is BlockSid?
The purpose of BlockSID is to prevent an OPAL drive from being managed by malware.
Unfortunately, when it is turned on, it also prevents SecureDoc from managing it too until the feature is turned off in the BIOS menu.
Normally you’d just go into the BIOS and turn it off.
Symptoms:
When the feature is enabled, the user will notice that when trying to encrypt Opal drive, they would likely see similar message presented with the following error:
“Please ensure BlockSid is disabled and restart your system”
Potential devices affected:
Lenovo M920q
There may be other Coffee Lake Desktop devices
Probable Cause:
At the time of writing this article, there has been identified problem with certain devices models such as Lenovo Coffee Lake desktop platform in which by design within the BIOS has BlockSid is enabled. It may be possible that depending on the revision of the BIOS, that there may be no option available to disable this feature as the BIOS does not have the option available in some models from Coffee Lake desktops.
When there is no option available to disable BlockSid present in the BIOS, hence, until BIOS update includes the option to disable this feature, you will not yet be able to successfully install SecureDoc.
Proposed Solution:
As of December 6, 2018, Lenovo is aware of the issue seen in certain models and are currently working on release a new BIOS update which will include the ability to disable the BlockSid feature as needed. Winmagic is working closely together with Lenovo’s Product Management team regarding a new BIOS update is expected to be released likely before Dec 31, 2018.