Decrypt filevault

I have a client who has a FileVault encrypted hard drive and the drive is failing. The client unfortunately was not backing up the drive in Time Machine and so my only option is to try to get the files off of the failing drive. The drive failure is not critical at this point in time and is still bootable (and all files can be seen but not copied away from the drive) but disk utility reports the drive as failing when you run disk verify. The problem I am having is that I was able to back up the drive and restore it (FileVault and all) to a new hard drive but the filevault lost integrity in the migration and Mountain Lion ends up saying that filevault is corrupted after a computer restart and will not be useable after that point at all. I tried going into settings and disabling legacy FileVault after the migration but before a restart, once I have the data on a healthy hard drive, but that fails every time about 10 minutes in. I am wondering if anyone knows of a tool or a workaround for decrypting the hard drive files when I have the master username and password. I already tried making a non-FileVault user and then logging in under the FileVault user and copying files over to the unencrypted user folder with no luck. Any help at all to get away from FileVault would be much appreciated!

Maybe this will help.
FileVault 2 - Using fdesetup with Mountain Lion’s
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20300269#20300269

Similar Messages

Decrypting FileVault Failed and User Account Not Allowing Login

So here is the scenario and my problem. I decided to do a clean install of Leopard on my PowerMac G5 and in doing so used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy all the content of my Macintosh HD drive to another internal DataDrive so that I could get my data later and be able to boot into that old installation of the OS for any reason. After the clone was complete I did a clean install of Leopard onto my Macintosh HD volume.
With the new installation running and updates run I decided to go and get my old data. Turns out I had FileVault protection on in the old installation and could not access my data through the new install. This was the very reason I kept the old installation. I rebooted into the old installation and went to remove FileVault protection. The computer logged out and started decrypting my user folder.
Two hours into the decryption it failed and prompted me to continue and be returned to my login and state before I started the decryption. Now I can't login to that user because when I attempt to it will say that FileVault needs to be repaired and give you the option to repair. The repair takes a while and then give you the error stating the repair didn't work.
So I need help figuring out how to get access to my data in that user folder or get that user folder to work so that I can get my info copied to my new installation. Any ideas would be very much appreciated as I feel like I have lost too much for comfort.
Thanks, Brandon

First of all thank you for the help. In all my trying to figure it out I didn't try just double clicking on the sparse bundle.
Because this was my only user on the computer I had to enable the root user to be able to login. Once that was enable I was able to mount the sparsebundle and copy my data out. I didn't get all of it as something did truly get corrupted during the decryption but I did get 99% I think.
Now with my data coped to another location I can attempt some repairs and see if I am able to get that last percentage point. Thank again.
Brandon

Problem with FileVault

Hello everyone
Last week my friend brought me his Macbook Pro and he asked me, if I can recover lost data from it. It was not very complicated and everything now is ok except his encrypt user account. The original is now on new 2,5 inch. 1TB drive and I have tried to connect it via USB (I have USB adapter). One problem is that after connection I see information:
Mac OS X can’t repair the disk “Macintosh HD.”
You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can’t save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can.
Now, I can browse his data (system,...etc), but I see nothing in his account. It was encrypted in FileVault. What should I do? What is wrong? Where can I find the solution?
Thanks a lot. Every advice will be helpful.

The linked article give you options using Terminal. Using them, you may be able to turn off file vault or add a new user to solve your problem. You are going to have to make sure you make the changes to his computer.
Enable or disable FileVault 2 encryption on a particular Mac
Use an individual recovery key, an institutional recovery key, or both kinds of recovery key.
Enable one or multiple user accounts at the time of encryption
Get a list of FileVault 2-enabled users on a particular machine
Add additional users after FileVault has been enabled
Remove users from the list of FileVault enabled accounts
Report on the status of FileVault 2 encryption or decryption
FileVault 2 - Using fdesetup with Mountain Lion’s
Also see this discussion.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21519057#21519057

To Shrink a filevault 2 partition using Disk Utility, decrypt it first

Just a tip for others: while trying to enlarge a bootcamp partition, I discovered that Disk Utility under Mountain Lion 10.8 will give you a strange (and misleading) error if you try to shrink a partition that's encrypted with filevault 2.
The solution is to turn off encryption, let the drive fully decrypt.
Then reboot (if you don't reboot, Disk Utility seems confused and shows a duplicate ghost version of your drive).
Then use DU to resize the partition.

Click the partioned disk > Hit Erase Tab >
Under "Format" Select "MAC OS Extended Journaled, Encrypted
Click "Erase"
Set Password ..
Done

Is it true that FileVault can be decrypted without a key?

Hello,
I just turned on my FileVault 2 like 3-4 hours back and was just web-searching how secure it was.
I happen to come accross a Youtube video and a website that says it can be decrypted without any key.
The software: http://www.lostpassword.com/news/pnl61.htm
Could anyone please tell me if this is true?
Thanks,
Graham Miranda
<Link Edited By Host>

I would not turn on FileVault unless my Macs were in a "hostile" environment. I also do not trust 90% of YouTube's content. You can test this yourself - no need for a second computer: clone your hard drive to an external drive so you have a bootable copy. Then follow the steps shown. If it works, fine. If not, wipe your drive and clone back your system.

FileVault decryption paused, unable to revert

My 2014 MacBook Pro with OS X 10.10.2 became unusable after a crash where the system became unresponsive and I was forced into a hard reboot. As I was using FileVault, the login screen was appearing soon after rebooting, but would freeze at around 40% after putting in my password, after which the spinning wheel would start. The problem even occurred in Safe Mode.
In looking for a solution, it was recommended that I decrypt the drive using the Disk Utility. However, I received an error when attempting to decrypt. I switched to the Terminal to try manually performing the decrypt operation using diskutil. Unfortunately, when trying 'diskutil cs revert UUID', I received the error "Unable to modify a FileVault context". I then tried both encryptVolume and decryptVolume, but they gave me conflicting messages at the disk was decrypted and encrypted already respectively.
Here is a summary of what I see when I run 'diskutil cs list':
Logical Volume Family UUID
Encryption Status: Unlocked
Encryption Type: AES-XTS
Conversion Status: Converting
Conversion Direction: Backward
|
+-> Logical Volume UUID
Conversion Progress: Paused
Revertible: Yes (unlock and decryption required)

You'll have to erase the volume and then restore the data from a backup.
If you don't already have a current backup of all data, back up before proceeding. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Disk Utility.
In the Disk Utility window, select the icon of the startup volume from the list on the left. It will be nested below another disk icon, usually with the same name. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar. When prompted, enter the login password of a user authorized to unlock the volume, or the alternate decryption key that was generated when you activated FileVault.Select the Erase tab, and then select
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
from the Format menu.
You can then quit to be returned to the main Recovery screen. Follow these instructions if you back up with Time Machine. If you use other backup software, follow its developer's instructions.
Don't erase the volume unless you have at least two complete, independent backups. One is not enough to be safe.

FileVault not decrypting?

For some reason, I decided to encrypt my MBP, just because I could, with Lion. No problem..did that. BUT, when I went to turn FileVault off, it went to do a restart and got hung up. Then, when I did get it going again I went to see if FV was really 'turning off'. But, it still said it was on. So when I tried to turn it off, I got this message saying "there was a problem enabling filevault, Problems were encountered with the disk “Internal HD”. Please turn off FileVault, verify and (if necessary) repair the disk with Disk Utility, and try enabling FileVault again." There is an option that says 'turn off filevault", which, when I press, it prompts me for my password, then I notice something weird: At the bottom of the window it says: "some users are not able to unlock the disk" (with a button to 'enable users')..which is weird because I am logged in as the admin account! When I click on 'enable users' all I see is my admin account with a check mark beside it (to me this means everything's ok?). When I click 'done' I return to the screen and I am given this error: Unable to modify a Full Disk Encryption context.
Basically I just want to completely turn off FileVault. But it looks like it's still trying to 'enable' itself every time I go into System Preferences and into Security.
Help?

First of all thank you for the help. In all my trying to figure it out I didn't try just double clicking on the sparse bundle.
Because this was my only user on the computer I had to enable the root user to be able to login. Once that was enable I was able to mount the sparsebundle and copy my data out. I didn't get all of it as something did truly get corrupted during the decryption but I did get 99% I think.
Now with my data coped to another location I can attempt some repairs and see if I am able to get that last percentage point. Thank again.
Brandon

FileVault 2 - Login issue: Only administrator can decrypt HD?

Hi, I just activated FileVault 2 (Lion) on my MBP (late 2007). Now, when I start the machine, the only user who can log in is the Admin account, not my "normal" user account. This is odd, because during the FileVault setup, I explicitly allowed this user to decrypt my data. Hence, the only way to access my user account is to login as Admin, log off again and then log in as user. The Aplle FileVault manual states that one could easily add users after encryption in Preferences, but I can see no such option on my machine.
Any idea what's wrong here?
Many thanks in advance!
Best, Matthias

Kaufi wrote:
Some idea, anyone?
Have you searches through the articles on the Right of this page under 'More Like This' for a solution? Personally I have never used, and will never use File Vault. But many do, so your solution is more than likely here.
Good Luck
Pete

Filevault decrypt failure

My usual backup method requires turning off Filevault. However, when trying to do so I get the error: *"an error occurred: an error occurred during decryption (an error occurred during copying). Filevault will be turned on for this home folder and the home folder will still be encrypted"*. I ran disk utility verify disk and repair disk permissions to no avail. I still get the error.
I am running 10.4.10, 2gRAM, 2.33 IC2D MBP.
Help?

Perhaps one of the following will help:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303617
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303617
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050326041757989
Solving File Vault Related Problems
Syd Low offered a helpful tip about recoving damaged Mac OS X FileVault data:
Apple's knowledge base article on this problem - How to verify or repair a home directory image - didn't work for me. When you click repair at step 12 Disk Utilty will not be able to repair the volume because of permission problems. Here's what I did:
I added write permission using the command line. Open the Terminal (Utilities folder) and at the prompt enter the following commands pressing return at the end of each:
prompt > cd /Users/accountname
prompt > sudo chmod g+w accountname.sparseimage
You will be asked to enter your admin password. It will not be echoed.
prompt > sudo chmod g+w /Users/accountname
Now you can run Disk Utility to repair the image successfully. Remember to change the permissions back afterwards:
prompt > sudo chmod g-w accountname.sparseimage
prompt > sudo chmod g-w /Users/accountname
Also read the following in the event the above doesn't help:
FileVault-protected Home shows less capacity than what's available on the hard disk.
Some possible fixes if FileVault goes awry.

FileVault won't encrypt a previously decrypted system volume.

When trying to install 10.8 (Booting from a key) I encountered an error and assumed that it was caused by my FileVault volume.
There was only one hard drive (SSD, 256Gb), and one volume on it encrypted with FileVault 2, so I decrypted it using the preference pan, and installed 10.8 Lion (After reseting the PRAM, there was my previous issue).
Now that 10.8 is installed I want to re-encrypt my SSD but when I try to activate it back again, the preference pan tells me that
FileVault Failed The target Core Storage volume is already encrypted.
and diskutil in command line tells me :
macbook-air:~ someone$ diskutil cs decryptVolume 9D59BA0A-0F9B-499D-9B0B-77397FB8D5F1
Passphrase:
Error beginning CoreStorage Logical Volume decryption: The target Core Storage volume is not encrypted (-69755)
One is telling me that the volume is already encrypted (but the password is prompted at login time, not by the EFI as it should if it was crypted).
And the other is telling me that it's not crypted.
When I try to encrypt using command line, it gets ridiculous
macbook-air:~ someone$ diskutil cs decryptVolume 9D59BA0A-0F9B-499D-9B0B-77397FB8D5F1
Passphrase:
Error beginning CoreStorage Logical Volume decryption: The target Core Storage volume is not encrypted (-69755)
macbook-air:~ someone$ diskutil cs encryptVolume 9D59BA0A-0F9B-499D-9B0B-77397FB8D5F1
New passphrase for existing volume:
Confirm new passphrase:
Started CoreStorage operation on disk1 SSD
Error: -69696: The target Core Storage volume is already encrypted
I guess there is some kind of bug, any idea how to circumvent it ?
Thanks.
Here is a full list of corestorage volumes.
macbook-air:~ someone$ diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group EB5FE5BE-190A-4248-9F39-F595B268BEB3
|   =========================================================
|   Name:         Macintosh HD
|   Size:         250140434432 B (250.1 GB)
|   Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
|   |
|   +-< Physical Volume C96F284D-285F-4948-9800-5ECF4E3453F0
|   |   ----------------------------------------------------
|   |   Index:    0
|   |   Disk:     disk0s2
|   |   Status:   Online
|   |   Size:     250140434432 B (250.1 GB)
|   |
|   +-> Logical Volume Family C7AC841C-21C1-4AC8-A372-7A0C154F7F16
|       ----------------------------------------------------------
|       Encryption Status:       Unlocked
|       Encryption Type:         None
|       Conversion Status:       Complete
|       Conversion Direction:    -none-
|       Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
|       Fully Secure:            No
|       Passphrase Required:     No
|       |
|       +-> Logical Volume 9D59BA0A-0F9B-499D-9B0B-77397FB8D5F1
|           ---------------------------------------------------
|           Disk:               disk1
|           Status:             Online
|           Size (Total):       250140434432 B (250.1 GB)
|           Size (Converted):   249821663232 B (249.8 GB)
|           Revertible:         No
|           LV Name:            SSD
|           Volume Name:        SSD
|           Content Hint:       Apple_HFS

Hey Gribouille,
I'm having a similar, I thought you may be able to help me out, since I couldn't figure it out myself and nothing came upin google search.
I'm using an early 2011 MBP, OS X 10.8.3 and a LaCie 2TB external HDD.
here's the problem:
I wanted to try and encrypt my external hdd for the first time, so I did it by right clicking on the drive and setting up a password, and then as I didn't want it to still be encrypted I decrypted it. But now when i'm trying to encrypting it again it says: "The target Core Storage volume is already encrypted.", although it doesn't require password and when I go to disk utility>File> the "change password" is not highlighted (meaning that it doesn't have a password). on the other hand when I go to "Get Info" of the drive in the format it says: Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted).
Do you have any suggestions to fix the problem?
By the way I have a very precious 1.7 TB data on the drive and I don't want to risk losing them in the process, and as I'm relatively new to Mac please explain step by step (for example I have no idea about the stuff in the grey boxes you've written above).
P.S. I tried repairing the disk from disk utility and rebooting my laptop, but that didn't work.
Thanks in advance.

Stuck on FileVault Decrypt

I have turned FileVault off....
It is stuck on a screen that says
"Decrypting xxxx's Home Folder
Time remaining: About 1 hour"
- The blue progress bar is not moving
- The time is not going down
- There is a pin wheel (not beach ball) spinning around just infront of the FileVault Dialogue
Touching the trackpad does not move anything.
What do I do?
The laptop appeared to have gone to sleep before it finished.

Follow up to my previous post. I just did a hard reset by holding down the power button and it started up fine. I then turned filevault back on, and it seemed to encrypt OK until it got to the part where it deletes the old user directory and then it hung with no progress on the progress bar. After many hours it crashed with the death screen requiring a hard reset. It started up OK with the Apple crash reporter activated.
I hope everything is OK. Any thoughts?

FileVault won't Decrypt itself

I got nervous reading about the FileVault troubles, especially getting hammered by Backup once before (wouldn't restore), so I tried to turn FileVault off.
No joy. Simply said an error occured -- that's it.
I did restart once before trying again, but still no joy, failed at about the same point of the process by looking at the activity bar. Now I have an encrypted computer and no way out that I know of. Please help !
Can I move my stuff to another user and then delete the encrypted account ? Would that even work, being that it's already been encrypted ?

Have you made sure that you have enough disk space to decrypt your FileVaulted account?
You'll need to select you user folder and select File --> Get Info to calculate its size. You should have at least that amount of free space and preferably about 10GB more for breathing room.
If this isn't your problem then please post more details about the error message.
Hope this helps!
bill

FileVault Stuck Decrypting (Among Other Issues)

Recently I made the mistake of trying out FileVault to encrypt the files on my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately I came to realize that this is a very tedious process that can take days to complete and slow down the performance of my machine. After trying multiple methods to either speed up the encryption process (which initially changed back and forth from "estimating time remaining" to "106 days remaining") or begin decryption through recovery mode and disk utility, I'm now stuck with a FileVault decryption status that's stuck, and a near useless computer.
im currently attempting to backup using Time Machine onto an external drive in order to do a full restore (since as far as I know that's the only true solution to the problem). Only issue is that it backs up depressingly slow (about 1 MB every 10 minutes, with a total of 224 GB to back up).
If there's anyone out there that could perhaps give me insight on how to repair this issue more smoothly, that'd be great.

A
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive or other storage device to hold the data.
1. Start up from the Recovery partition, from Internet Recovery, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
If you use FileVault 2, then you must first unlock the startup volume. Select its icon ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another disk icon, usually with the same name. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar. Enter your login password when prompted.
2. If Method 1 fails because of disk errors, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
3. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
4. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
B
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Disk Utility.
In the Disk Utility window, select the icon of the startup volume from the list on the left. It will be nested below another disk icon, usually with the same name. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar. When prompted, enter the login password of a user authorized to unlock the volume, or the alternate decryption key that was generated when you activated FileVault.
Then, from the menu bar, select
File ▹ Turn Off Encryption
Enter the password again.
You can then restart as usual, if the system is working. Decryption will be completed in the background. It may take several hours, and during that time performance will be reduced.
If you can't turn off encryption in Disk Utility because the menu item is grayed out, you'll have to erase the volume and then restore the data from a backup. Select the Erase tab, and then select
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
from the Format menu.
You can then quit to be returned to the main Recovery screen. Follow these instructions if you back up with Time Machine. If you use other backup software, follow its developer's instructions.
Don't erase the volume unless you have at least two complete, independent backups. One is not enough to be safe.

FileVault frozen decryption

I've been at this for at least 12 hours now, i'm losing my mind!!! Basically, I was having a small problem with my late 2011 macbook pro so I backed it up, got the problem sorted, Erased my disk and reinstalled yosemite. Since i've reinstalled , I've just been getting the little pinwheel option every few minutes, when i try to do simple tasks like type, copy and paste, everything is running VERY slow, Listening to music and watching videos is next to impossible. So after researching I found a few other people with the same problem and they said it was caused by FileVault (I must have clicked to enable it when i restored) so I followed instructions and began decrypting it. Problem is, It's been frozen in the exact same spot (about 5/6th's of the way) for about 8 hours now, it doesn't even give me a time it just says 'Estimated time remaining'.. I have tried everything, restarted multiple times, typed loads of stuff into the terminal, even reinstalled yosemite AGAIN but still nothing.. I need to do some work for college but it's too slow to run Final Cut pro. Please someone help!

If you can't turn off encryption in Disk Utility, you'll have to erase the volume and then restore the data from a backup. Select the Erase tab, and then select
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
from the Format menu.
You can then quit to be returned to the main Recovery screen. Follow these instructions if you back up with Time Machine. If you use other backup software, follow its developer's instructions.
Don't erase the volume unless you have at least two complete, independent backups. One is not enough to be safe.

Filevault decryption hangs

Hello,
I'm running 10.9.3 on a late 2011 macbook pro. I had file vault turned on my system. I needed to turn off file vault. So I hit the "turn off filevault" button. It has been 5 days and its still showing "decrypting... estimating time remaining..." The disk is a 750gb disk with 262gb used. I ran the diskutil cli and it tells me the the disk is backward converting (as pasted below). The drive sounds busy when i put the laptop up to my ear. Does anyone know how to check the status of the decryption beyond "converting?"
{Encryption Status: Unlocked
Encryption Type: None
Conversion Status: Converting
Conversion Direction: backward
Has Encrypted Extents: Yes
Fully Secure: No
Passphrase Required: No}

You need to get a backup before doing anything else and 2 would be better than one. Use Time Machine or a clone or both.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Decrypt filevault

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