How to Encrypt Le Pan 2

Hi! When I try to encrypt my Le Pan 2 android tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich, it stops at 11% and says that it failed and needs to restore to factory condition. I repeat the process and get the same error. I found a post on the company forum posted eight months ago:

"At this point that feature is not usable. There is no fix that we can find at this time for that but have alerted the developers to this and hopefully they will be able to find a solution for us."

I've contacted the manufacturer again just to be sure, but barring that, is there another way to encrypt the device? Maybe through rooting? Thanks in advance.