Encrypted (file vault 2) HD with corrupted volume structure

A short while after updating to Lion and enabling the new whole-disk encryption feature in file vault 2, the internal HD on my laptop crashed. I installed a new HD and restored from my (encrypted) time machine backup (actually went pretty well!), so overall I'm back in pretty good shape. That said, there were a few files that I realized were either modified in the interval between backups, or had been excluded from time machine backups (my most recent parallels drive, for example). While I'm able to re-create the lost work, I'm interested to see if anyone has had success in getting data back from a file vault 2 encrypted drive. I'm interested in this more as an academic exercise, the stakes are not high here.
In terms of diagnosis of the drive crash, the computer was able to boot from the lion recovery partition, but disk utility in recovery mode was unable to repair the main partition. It showed up in disk utility but it could not be repaired. Booting from a lion recovery USB flash drive I made found the drive, but again was unable to repair it. A demo version of data rescue III was able to see the drive (I've since moved it to an external USB enclosure) but wasn't able to extract data from it. Right now I'm having disk utility create an image of the disk to see if I can access it as an image.
Does anyone have any recommendations as to how to try to get the finder to see the partition so it can decrypt / allow access to the drive before having an application such as data rescue try to extract files from it?

Thanks no of course it isn't I just wanted to check the new disk was working correctly which it is. My macs like new boots in no time.
cheers

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G4 mini has a problem with its volume structure

My G4 mini has a problem with its volume structure according to Tech Tools Deluxe. One that the application can't seem to repair. Ran it 3 times and it always hangs before it completes the fix. Never hangs in exactly the same place in the repair routine, but always hangs.
Ran these tests because for the longest time the mini would accelerate (panic) and shut down. Installation on a new system hangs before it completes the install of all the upgrades. Any help would be appreciated.

I realize it was not clear from the original post whether or not DiskUtility had been tried yet to fix the hard drive.
To use DiskUtility to repair the drive, you have to boot from the original install disc that shipped with your Mini.
1) Insert the Install disc and the shutdown the Mini.
2) Restart the Mini and hold down the C key as soon as the startup chime or beep is heard. Hold it down until you see the "gear" spinning on the screen.
3) Select your language, but don't proceed any farther with installation. Use the Utilities menu at the top of the screen to run DiskUtility.
4) In DiskUtility, click once on the hard drive in the left panel, then click on the Repair Disk button in the right panel.

Lion OSX File Vault and filesharing with unencrypted users/computers

How does File Vault 2 work in the following Use-Case?
User A, has full disk encryption through File Vault enabled on a MacBook Air.
User A has an Microsoft Excel file that has been stored in his/her Documents Folder on their encrypted drive.
User A wants to share this file with User B so that User B can finish entering data and adding some calculations.
User B is a Windows 7 PC with no disk encryption.
User A drops this file on a WIndows file server that both User A and User B has access to.
This file server is not an encrypted system.
Will the act of User A dropping the file on the file server automatically unencrypt the file so the User B can open the Excel file and work with it?

The files don't get passed as an encrypted object. They get passed as files. The encryption/decryption works at a level that is transparent to just about everything, includingthe file system.
So, no, the file is not encrypted when you drop it onto a file server.

What happens if you Time-Machine backup an encrypted file-vault HD?

This is related to my previous post - but deserves special mention for those people who are using time-vault AND Time-Machine.
My question is this: If the backup of my Hard-drive is encrypted, and I then reinstall from backup, what will this situation likely produce?
This is what I have done. I also Archived and installed my Mac prior to installing from my Time-Machine backup.
I now have an error message that displays the following message at the login screen:
"Unable to log into the file-vault account "......." at this time. An error has occurred."
My password IS CORRECT. I have not changed it, and the log in window does accept my password, but it doesn't progress any further than the error message I gave above.
I'm wondering if the encryption process of file-vault is linked directly with the original installation I had of Mac OS-X before I Archived and installed.
Any thoughts/knowledge/Insight?? I want my old Mac back! (I don't recommend using file-vault). Any body else had this problem or can see what is happening to me here?
Thank you
Greg

I just did a backup, moved a folder with 600mb of images into a different folder, and did another backup. The free space on the backup drive dropped by the size of the folder's contents. The backup copied the files as I watched in System Preferences, and it looked like it was really copying the files to the external drive again. It looks like Time Machine isn't as smart as I hoped in this regard.
Still - I'd think the wasted space is only in the every-hour-for-the-last-24-hours bucket of Time Machine. I'm guessing the every hour backups are like a sliding window, where a backup that's 24 hours old drops out every hour rather than all the hourly backups getting wiped at midnight and starting over.
Regardless, only one version of the moved folder will eventually be stored as the daily backup for that day. I don't have proof, but that's what I think.
So, if you've moved a bunch of folders around or renamed them, the extra copies of the same exact files should drop off within 24 hours.
That's my interpretation, but I'm in no way positive!! The lengthy Ars review didn't offer an answer to this question.

How to transfer encrypted file using B2B sftp with custom doc over generic

hi ,
we have a requirement to get and send an encrypted file to/from our trading partner.
Previously we configured B2B sftp with custom doc. over generic exchange protocol to get a text file and used 1st 11 charecters in the file as identifier for the TPA configuration and successfully processed the file. Since we are getting an encrypted file , we need to find a way to identify the TPA config. .
Please reply to this thread if you have any suggestions. Pls. feel free to ask if you need more information to understand the situation.
thanks
srini

hi Ramesh,
I have sent mail to you . We are actually using file name convensions but we are using internal delivery as B2B InQuueue . And when we use custom document over generic exchange , in the paramenters we do not see any file name property. i hava also sent you the TPA so that you can get idea of the configuration we did.
thanks
Srini

Time Machine and File Vault

Does Time Machine work with File Vault? If it does it's no obvious to me how to find a backed-up file. I'd like to turn off File Vault, but that's another issue entirely. I'd have to remove a ton of stuff in order to turn off File Vault.

TM works with filevault but not well.
see this link
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007111404402514&query=time%2Bmachi ne%2Bfile%2Bvault

Tech Tool Deluxe DVD won't boot with 10.5.6. How to fix volume structure?

Is it just my newbieness, or is the Tech Tool Deluxe 3.1.2 DVD image not bootable with late 2008 MBP with OS X 10.5.6?
I installed Tech Tool Deluxe 3.1.2 to Leopard 10.5.6. - ran it and it said I have problems with my volume structures. I followed the download button, gave my serial and downloaded the TTD.dmg image, burned it to DVD with Disk Utility (seems OK, as I can read the disk in OS).
When I try to boot from the DVD, it just reboots in a while to my OS X (tried with c and opt buttons during start-up. I can choose to boot from DVD with opt, but again it just reboots in a while).
Apple mentions that this version of TTD is not compatible with Late 2008 models - is booting one of the incompatibilities? If so, fine, but how can I fix my volume structure problems now, that tend to hang my Mac every once in while with big disk operations?
Thanks for any possible help.

I had the same problem myself. The TechTool bootable products on DVD won't startup an October 2008 release MacBook or MacBook Pro.
From the Micromat website:
Our current bootable products support all PowerPC and Intel Macintosh computers capable
of running Mac OS X 10.5 or greater, except for:
• MacBook (October 2008 Release)
• MacBook Pro (October 2008 Release)
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=168

Volume structure

Hi. I'm new to the mac world. I just got my 1.83ghz 1gb ram white macbook today and i'm very happy with it apart from one thing. It came with a cd that has a program called Techtool delux on it. I let it run and it said that i have a problem with the volume structure. This is what the report said:
"Volume Structure
Failed
TechTool Deluxe can scan volumes for problems related to the numerous structures that are necessary for the volumes to operate correctly. If problems are found, TechTool Deluxe can attempt to repair the damage to help reduce the chance of future problems.
If TechTool Deluxe has discovered problems with the volume structure of a volume, allow the program to repair the problem. Quite often these issues are minor, but sometimes they can be indicative of a more serious problem. If the problem persists, consider backing up the device, reformatting the media, replacing the data, and then testing again."
Can anyone tell me what this actualy means and what i can do about it?
Thanks
AON
EDIT: problem solved. sorry for the waste of a thread.

Hi, Soundgord.
I suspect the version of TechTool Deluxe (TTD) you have is incompatible with your Intel-based Mac. This may explain the result you received.
Micromat has just released TechTool Pro 4.5.1 (TTP) for Intel-based Macs. In the past, Micromat has offered inexpensive upgrades from TTD to TTP.
For PPC-based Macs, the only Tiger-compatible versions of TTD are 3.0.4 or later. See "Mac OS X 10.4: Don't use Tech Tool Deluxe 3.0.3's Volume Structure repair."
Meanwhile, I recommend instead you I suggest you run the Procedure outlined in my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ. Perform at least Steps 1-3 therein in the order specified.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Volume Structure Failed message

When I run the Techtool Deluxe software on both hard drives, the original hard drive from Apple and another WD 320 drive I bought and installed I get the Volume Structure Failed message on both and Techtool Deluxe cannot repair either. Anyone have ideas on what is causing this problem and what it means?
Volume Structure
Failed
TechTool Deluxe can scan volumes for problems related to the numerous structures that are necessary for the volumes to operate correctly. If problems are found, TechTool Deluxe can attempt to repair the damage to help reduce the chance of future problems.
If TechTool Deluxe has discovered problems with the volume structure of a volume, allow the program to repair the problem. Quite often these issues are minor, but sometimes they can be indicative of a more serious problem. If the problem persists, consider backing up the device, reformatting the media, replacing the data, and then testing again.

Disk First Aid's repair process only works on a single pass basis. That is, it will make a pass, and attempt to repair the first problem it encounters, then exit. In order to successfully use Disk FirtAid's repair process, you must perform the repair numerous times, until no error message is displayed.
When Disk First Aid completes without any error message, then any repairs were performed successfully. If the error messages always continue, then it was unable to make the needed repairs.
The only problem with this process is, how many times to try the repair process before giving up, since the process doesn;t give you any idea of many more passes will be needed. You know a message, like, "Hey, almost done, maybe two more passes" would be helpful.
Instead you just need to guess, and if it takes more then four or five passes, it is probably beyond the ability of Disk First Aid to repair. However, it is still possible that fsck (file system check) may be able to complete the repair that Disk Utility was trying to fix. Actually Disk Utility uses the fsck program, but fsck when run from the single user mode can be more effective, since the file system can be completely unmounted and checked.
To run fsck from single user mode, restart your Mac and hold down the Command key plus the S key (apple key and the S key held at the same time while restarting). The screen should show lines of text flowing by ending with a command prompt. at the command prompt, enter /sbin/fsck -fy and hit return.
If problems are encountered an repaired, a message saying FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED will appear. Like Disk First AId, you need to run fsck multiple times until the above message is not displayed and instead a message says the volume xxxx appears to be OK appears. When this happens, or when you decide that no amount of running fsck will work, then at the command prompt enter reboot and hit return.
Good luck.
Tom N.

How do i retrieve file vault protected files from an external hard disk that used to be my mbp's hard drive? the hard disk got corrupted and will no longer boot. I put it in an enclosure and attempted to copy my files but failed because of FV encryption.

This external hard disk used to serve as the main drive of my mbp. It got corrupted and the OSX would no longer load. I upgraded to a 500gb hd and used the old hd as an external drive. I tried to copy my files but i could not access them because of the filevault encryption. 110gb of hd space appears as used which means that my files are still in the drive. Is there a way to retrieve these files? thanks

According to your post, you're using Leopard, so FileVault only encrypts your user folder (unlike Lion). On the mounted external drive, in your user folder, you should see a file called username.sparsebundle, with username being your user name. Double-click that file to open it and it should prompt you for a password. Type in your password and the file will mount as a volume in Finder. You should be able to copy all of your files over.

Are my File Vault encrypted files backed up with Time Machine still useful?

The background:
My iMac G5 crashed. It all started one and a half years ago when my screen popped and the frequent hard shutdowns pobably damaged my HDD (the one elegant solution Windows have is the Windows button: press + 'u' + return = proper shutdown). After that episode I bought an external drive and started a Time Machine backup routine. What I did not realize, was the issues surrounding the use of TM with a File Vault encrypted system. In 2007 when I bought my G5, I poked around, getting myself familiarized in Mac OS X and found this thing called File Vault. It looked like something useful and I started using it. Later I upgraded my OS and after my screen problem, decided to make use of Time Machine. The one problem with Mac OS X is the ease of use. It's so easy that Apple probably cannot foresee all the dumb things we users are going to do with it, including a warning to first time TM users who have their system already encrypted with FV. Now, after searching the forums, I see the problems and the warnings. If someone use TM and then decide to use FV, a warning pops up, but not the other way around! At least, I never saw it coming. If there is such a warning, I probably did not read it - as I say, it all happens so easy and work so well, it's easy to use a Mac without reading the instructions. Yes, I did some dumb things, but that's probably because I'm not so dumb; too relaxed, yes. At least, so it seems to me : )
My problem:
Two weeks ago, my G5 suddenly started giving problems. Out of the blue I couldn't open Adobe Bridge. At first I thought it was a software problem and tried re-installing Bridge and searched the Adobe forums for a solution. After a long struggle trying different solutions, I eventually booted with my install disk and with Disk Utility found that there is a problem with my internal HDD. Only then it dawned on me that my problem is far more serious than a software problem but by then it was too late. I couldn't repair the HDD with DU and got an instruction to restore my system with a backup. No problem! I hooked up my external HD and pressed the button. The restoration took over 12 hours to complete. That in itself showed my that I have a big problem, but I did not dare interrupt the process. In the end I got a window with a 'Restart System' button. All I got from that was a white screen with a spinning wheel and that's where I am now. Needless to say, my G5 is now getting repaired.
My solution:
I have to keep going so I used my savings to buy another Mac. I have my backups, so I'll just do a Migration and keep working. Or so I thought. When I tried it, it obviously failed because I sit with encrypted backups that would only restore to the original machine - which crashed! After reading about it on the forums, it dawned on me that it is, most probably, a futile exercise. My backups are, most probably, no backups at all, because I also did not realize that I had to 'log out' of my FV to get TM to properly backup my files! In never dawned on me that I should log out! I have one machine at home and have no particular reason to log out at all!
My question:
Am I wasting my time with the 'backups' I have? Should I wait for my G5 to get back from the shop and see if they are useful, of should I just move on and try to live the rest of my life without all the electronic data I lost?

Gorrelduik wrote:
But they missed one situation: if Time Machine is set up, but auto backups are turned OFF, there's no message. If you turn it back on, there's no message then, either.
. . . and that's exactly my MO! I still don't have auto backup turned on. If it's better to use auto backup I'll do it, but to my mind it's better not to have both my computer and my backup disk on all the time. What happens when there is a power failure or lightning strike and both are on and both get damaged? My MO is to make a manual backup once a day and then put the external HDD away.
That's one of the reasons not to rely on a single backup, no matter where it is or how it was made. All hardware fails, sooner or later, no backup app is perfect, and things like lightning, fire, flood, and theft happen, too.
With a desktop Mac (and a U.P.S. system that both the Mac and External HD are on), you can let TM do it's hourly backups (although that won't help a lot with the current incarnation of File Vault), then keep secondary backups on a separate HD, perhaps a portable one, with a different app. See #27 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for some suggestions.
I have thought of doing another weekly backup on a different external HD that I keep at the office, but I'm still procrastinating that one. Now that I think about it, does Time Machine cater for that: having two backup routines on two different HDD's?
You can do that, but you must tell Time Machine each time you want to "swap" drives. But each will be complete and independent.

File Vault on HOme Directory with encrypted disk image in it

I want to try File Vault. My question is as follows: I have an encrypted disk image already in my home folder. It is a small 500 MB one. Can I keep that in there, as is, without problems, or is File Vault going to encrypt and encrypted image and cause some sort of problem?
Has anyone done this without issues?
I know the alternative is to unencrypt my current image and let File Vault handle the encryption, but I am curious about leaving it alone and trying File Vault.
Thanks for any help,
x-.-x

x-.-x wrote:
I want to try File Vault.
Good luck!
File Vault going to encrypt and encrypted image and cause some sort of problem?
FileVault is no more likely to scramble an encrypted disk image than it is to scramble the rest of your files. However, it is quite likely that it will scramble all of your files.
Has anyone done this without issues?
I have read many postings here in the discussion forums by people who have used FileVault and lost all of their data. Your mileage may vary. The only way I would use FileVault would be if I had an unencrypted copy of everything somewhere safe. Like you, I keep a small encrypted disk image for particularly sensitive files.

I tried to encrypt using file vault but it froze slowing my macbook pro, how can i get things moving or stop the encryption

i tried to encrypt using file vault but it froze slowing my macbook pro, how can i get things moving or stop the encryption

Back up all data 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.
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.

File vault stuck on encryption paused.

Hi all
Recently bought a Macbook Air and decided to use file vault, things seemed ok at first but when file vault was about to finish it became stuck on "encryption paused".
Even with the power adapter connected it still will not continue, also i have found that it will cause "system preferences" to stop responding requiring me to force quit the application.
I have spoke to a very helpful Apple support adviser who said it was a "cosmetic issue" and i should try a PRAM reset but this has not resolved the problem.
Is anybody else experiencing similar problems?
Thanks

Back up all data 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.
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.

File vault - can't turn it off / encryption stopped

Hello,
I recentl upgraded to Yosemite on my Macbook Air and File Vault seems to have been turned on by default. I want to turn it off, but I can't until encryption is finished. The problem is that encryption seems to have got stuck. When I open the security/privacy section of System Preferences it estimates the time remaining for encryption to be anything from 600 to 2000 days.
I've tried turning encryption off by running disk utility, selecting the volume and then holding down the 'alt' key when accessing the file menu to select the 'turn off encryption' option, but it doesn't seem to do anything.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
diskutil cs list | pbcopy
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.
The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

Encrypted (file vault 2) HD with corrupted volume structure

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