File Vault crashing

During installation of Yosemite I chose (for the first time) to enable File Vault. Approx 24hrs later the machine became slow and unresponsive leading me to hard reset, to no avail.  Other than in safe mode my Macbook Pro has been unsuable for over a week now.
I later thought it could be down to File Vault, and can see from System Pref under safe mode that encryption is still underway (though paused in safe mode).
Sometimes it is possible to boot succesfully, though the machine is still incredibly slow. I can just about open File Vault (though the 3 or 4 clicks take several hours) and see 'estimating time remaining' and an approximately 75-80% completed progress bar.
The progress bar never moves. If I leave it switched on (for hours, days) nothing changes.
Has the whole process stalled? Is there anything I can do?
If I take everything off under safe mode that I want to save, then reformat and reinstall, is that my only option?

1. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem. But with the aid of the test results, the solution may take a few minutes, instead of hours or days.
Don't be put off by the complexity of these instructions. The process is much less complicated than the description. You do harder tasks with the computer all the time.
2. If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in the test procedure. Backup is always a must, and when you're having any kind of trouble with the computer, you may be at higher than usual risk of losing data, whether you follow these instructions or not.
There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
3. Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. As I wrote above, it changes nothing. It doesn't send or receive any data on the network. All it does is to generate a human-readable report on the state of the computer. That report goes nowhere unless you choose to share it. If you prefer, you can act on it yourself without disclosing the contents to me or anyone else.
You should be wondering whether you can believe me, and whether it's safe to run a program at the behest of a stranger. In general, no, it's not safe and I don't encourage it.
In this case, however, there are a couple of ways for you to decide whether the program is safe without having to trust me. First, you can read it. Unlike an application that you download and click to run, it's transparent, so anyone with the necessary skill can verify what it does.
You may not be able to understand the script yourself. But variations of the script have been posted on this website thousands of times over a period of years. The site is hosted by Apple, which does not allow it to be used to distribute harmful software. Any one of the millions of registered users could have read the script and raised the alarm if it was harmful. Then I would not be here now and you would not be reading this message.
Nevertheless, if you can't satisfy yourself that these instructions are safe, don't follow them. Ask for other options.
4. Here's a summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:
☞ Copy a line of text in this window to the Clipboard.
☞ Paste into the window of another application.
☞ Wait for the test to run. It usually takes a few minutes.
☞ Paste the results, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page.
The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time. Details follow.
5. You may have started the computer in "safe" mode. Preferably, these steps should be taken in “normal” mode, under the conditions in which the problem is reproduced. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.
6. If you have more than one user, and the one affected by the problem is not an administrator, then please run the test twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time is an administrator. If you can't log in as an administrator, test as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this section doesn’t apply. Don't log in as root.
7. The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in the browser window, and you can then copy it. If you try to select the line by dragging across the part you can see, you won't get all of it.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/libexec;clear;cd;p=(Software Hardware Memory Diagnostics Power FireWire Thunderbolt USB Fonts SerialATA 4 1000 25 5120 KiB/s 1024 85 \\b%% 20480 1 MB/s 25000 ports ' com.clark.\* \*dropbox \*genieo\* \*GoogleDr\* \*k.AutoCAD\* \*k.Maya\* vidinst\* ' DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES\ DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH -86 "` route -n get default|awk '/e:/{print $2}' `" 25 N\\/A down up 102400 25600 recvfrom sendto CFBundleIdentifier 25 25 25 1000 MB ' com.adobe.fpsaud com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing ' ' 1274181950 464843899 1233118628 ' 51 5120 files );N5=${#p[@]};p[N5]=` networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder|awk ' NR>1 { sub(/^\([0-9]+\) /,"");n=$0;getline;} $NF=="'${p[26]}')" { sub(/.$/,"",$NF);print n;exit;} ' `;f=('\n%s: %s\n' '\n%s\n\n%s\n' '\nRAM details\n%s\n' %s\ %s '%s\n-\t%s\n' );S0() { echo ' { q=$NF+0;$NF="";u=$(NF-1);$(NF-1)="";gsub(/^ +| +$/,"");if(q>='${p[$1]}') printf("%s (UID %s) is using %s '${p[$2]}'",$0,u,q);} ';};s=(' s/[0-9A-Za-z._]+@[0-9A-Za-z.]+\.[0-9A-Za-z]{2,4}/EMAIL/g;/\/Shared/!s/(\/Users\/)[^ /]+/\1USER/g;s/[-0-9A-Fa-f]{22,}/UUID/g;' ' s/^ +//;/de: S|[nst]:/p;' ' {sub(/^ +/,"")};/er:/;/y:/&&$2<'${p[10]} ' 1s/://;3,6d;/[my].+:/d;s/^ {4}//;H;${ g;s/\n$//;/s: [^EO]|x([^08]|02[^F]|8[^0])/p;} ' ' 5h;6{ H;g;/P/!p;} ' ' ($1~/^Cy/&&$3>'${p[11]}')||($1~/^Cond/&&$2!~/^N/) ' ' /:$/{ N;/:.+:/d;s/ *://;b0'$'\n'' };/^ *(V.+ [0N]|Man).+ /{ s/ 0x.... //;s/[()]//g;s/(.+: )(.+)/ (\2)/;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;s/\n\n//;/Apple[ ,]|Genesy|Intel|SMSC/d;s/\n.*//;/\)$/p;' ' s/^.*C/C/;H;${ g;/No th|pms/!p;} ' '/= [^GO]/p' '{$1=""};1' ' /Of/!{ s/^.+is |\.//g;p;} ' ' $0&&!/ / { n++;print;} END { split("'"${p[41]}"'",b);for(i in b) print b[i];if(n<200) print "com.apple.";} ' ' $3~/[0-9]:[0-9]{2}$/ { gsub(/:[0-9:a-f]{14}/,"");} { print|"tail -n'${p[12]}'";} ' ' NR==2&&$4<='${p[13]}' { print $4;} ' ' END { $2/=256;if($2>='${p[15]}') print int($2) } ' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 21 22`" 'NR!=2{next}'"`S0 37 17`" ' NR!=5||$8!~/[RW]/{next};{ $(NF-1)=$1;$NF=int($NF/10000000);for(i=1;i<=3;i++){$i="";$(NF-1-i)="";};};'"`S0 19 20`" 's:^:/:p' '/\.kext\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' 's/^.{52}(.+) <.+/\1/p' ' /Launch[AD].+\.plist$/ { n++;print;} END { split("'"${p[41]}"'",b);for(i in b) print b[i]".plist";if(n<200) print "/System/";} ' '/\.xpc\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' ' NR>1&&!/0x|\.[0-9]+$|com\.apple\.launchctl\.(Aqua|Background|System)$/ { print $3;} ' ' /\.(framew|lproj)|\):/d;/plist:|:.+(Mach|scrip)/s/:[^:]+//p ' '/^root$/p' ' !/\/Contents\/.+\/Contents|Applic|Autom|Frameworks/&&/Lib.+\/Info.plist$/ { n++;print;} END { if(n<1100) print "/System/";} ' '/^\/usr\/lib\/.+dylib$/p' ' /Temp|emac/{next};/(etc|Preferences|Launch[AD].+)\// { sub(".(/private)?","");n++;print;} END { split("'"${p[41]}"'",b);split("'"${p[42]}"'",c);for(i in b) print b[i]".plist\t"c[i];if(n<500) print "Launch";} ' ' /\/(Contents\/.+\/Contents|Frameworks)\/|\.wdgt\/.+\.([bw]|plu)/d;p;' 's/\/(Contents\/)?Info.plist$//;p' ' { gsub("^| |\n","\\|\\|kMDItem'${p[35]}'=");sub("^...."," ") };1 ' p '{print $3"\t"$1}' 's/\'$'\t''.+//p' 's/1/On/p' '/Prox.+: [^0]/p' '$2>'${p[43]}'{$2=$2-1;print}' ' BEGIN { i="'${p[26]}'";M1='${p[16]}';M2='${p[18]}';M3='${p[31]}';M4='${p[32]}';} !/^A/{next};/%/ { getline;if($5<M1) a="user "$2"%, system "$4"%";} /disk0/&&$4>M2 { b=$3" ops/s, "$4" blocks/s";} $2==i { if(c) { d=$3+$4+$5+$6;next;};if($4>M3||$6>M4) c=int($4/1024)" in, "int($6/1024)" out";} END { if(a) print "CPU: "a;if(b) print "I/O: "b;if(c) print "Net: "c" (KiB/s)";if(d) print "Net errors: "d" packets/s";} ' ' /r\[0\] /&&$NF!~/^1(0|72\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])|92\.168)\./ { print $NF;exit;} ' ' !/^T/ { printf "(static)";exit;} ' '/apsd|BKAg|OpenD/!s/:.+//p' ' (/k:/&&$3!~/(255\.){3}0/ )||(/v6:/&&$2!~/A/ ) ' ' $1~"lR"&&$2<='${p[25]}';$1~"li"&&$3!~"wpa2";' ' BEGIN { FS=":";p="uniq -c|sed -E '"'s/ +\\([0-9]+\\)\\(.+\\)/\\\2 x\\\1/;s/x1$//'"'";} { n=split($3,a,".");sub(/_2[01].+/,"",$3);print $2" "$3" "a[n]$1|p;b=b$1;} END { close(p);if(b) print("\n\t* Code injection");} ' ' NR!=4{next} {$NF/=10240} '"`S0 27 14`" ' END { if($3~/[0-9]/)print$3;} ' ' BEGIN { L='${p[36]}';} !/^[[:space:]]*(#.*)?$/ { l++;if(l<=L) f=f"\n   "$0;} END { F=FILENAME;if(!F) exit;if(!f) f="\n   [N/A]";"file -b "F|getline T;if(T!~/^(AS.+ (En.+ )?text$|(Bo|PO).+ sh.+ text ex)/) F=F" ("T")";printf("\nContents of %s\n%s\n",F,f);if(l>L) printf("\n   ...and %s more line(s)\n",l-L);} ' ' s/^ ?n...://p;s/^ ?p...:/-'$'\t''/p;' 's/0/Off/p' ' END{print NR} ' ' /id: N|te: Y/{i++} END{print i} ' ' / / { print "'"${p[28]}"'";exit;};1;' '/ en/!s/\.//p' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-M]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 39 40`" ' $10~/\(L/&&$9!~"localhost" { sub(/.+:/,"",$9);print $1": "$9;} ' '/^ +r/s/.+"(.+)".+/\1/p' 's/(.+\.wdgt)\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/\1/p' 's/^.+\/(.+)\.wdgt$/\1/p' ' /l: /{ /DVD/d;s/.+: //;b0'$'\n'' };/s: /{ /V/d;s/^ */- /;H;};$b0'$'\n'' d;:0'$'\n'' x;/APPLE [^:]+$/d;p;' ' /^find: /d;p;' "`S0 44 45`" ' BEGIN{FS="= "} /Path/{print $2} ' ' /^ *$/d;s/^ */   /;' );c1=(system_profiler pmset\ -g nvram fdesetup find syslog df vm_stat sar ps sudo\ crontab sudo\ iotop top pkgutil 'PlistBuddy 2>&1 -c "Print' whoami cksum kextstat launchctl sudo\ launchctl crontab 'sudo defaults read' stat lsbom mdfind ' for i in ${p[24]};do ${c1[18]} ${c2[27]} $i;done;' defaults\ read scutil sudo\ dtrace sudo\ profiles sed\ -En awk /S*/*/P*/*/*/C*/*/airport networksetup mdutil sudo\ lsof test osascript\ -e );c2=(com.apple.loginwindow\ LoginHook '" /L*/P*/loginw*' "'tell app \"System Events\" to get properties of login items'|tr , \\\n" 'L*/Ca*/com.ap*.Saf*/E*/* -d 1 -name In*t -exec '"${c1[14]}"' :CFBundleDisplayName" {} \;|sort|uniq' '~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 \)' '.??* -path .Trash -prune -o -type d -name *.app -print -prune' :${p[35]}\" :Label\" '{/,}L*/{Con,Pref}* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist -exec plutil -s {} \;' "-f'%N: %l' Desktop L*/Keyc*" therm sysload boot-args status " -F '\$Time \$Message' -k Sender kernel -k Message Req 'bad |Beac|caug|corru|dead[^bl]|FAIL|fail|GPU |hfs: Ru|inval|jnl:|last value [1-9]|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|pagin|proc: t|Roamed|rror|ssert|Thrott|tim(ed? ?|ing )o|WARN' -k Message Rne 'Goog|ksadm|SMC:|suhel| VALI|xpma' -o -k Sender fseventsd -k Message Req 'SL' " '-du -n DEV -n EDEV 1 10' 'acrx -o comm,ruid,%cpu' '-t1 10 1' '-f -pfc /var/db/r*/com.apple.*.{BS,Bas,Es,J,OSXU,Rem,up}*.bom' '{/,}L*/Lo*/Diag* -type f -regex .\*[cght] ! -name .?\* ! -name \*ag \( -exec grep -lq "^Thread c" {} \; -exec printf \* \; -o -true \) -execdir stat -f:%Sc:%N -t%F {} \;|sort -t: -k2 |tail -n'${p[38]} '/S*/*/Ca*/*xpc* >&- ||echo No' '-L /{S*/,}L*/StartupItems -type f -exec file {} +' '-L /S*/L*/{C*/Sec*A,Ex}* {/,}L*/{A*d,Ca*/*/Ex,Co{mpon,reM},Ex,In{p,ter},iTu*/*P,Keyb,Mail/B,Pr*P,Qu*T,Scripti,Sec,Servi,Spo,Widg}* -path \\*s/Resources -prune -o -type f -name Info.plist' '/usr/lib -type f -name *.dylib' `awk "${s[31]}"<<<${p[23]}` "/e*/{auto,{cron,fs}tab,hosts,{[lp],sy}*.conf,mach_i*/*,pam.d/*,ssh{,d}_config,*.local} {,/usr/local}/etc/periodic/*/* /L*/P*{,/*}/com.a*.{Bo,sec*.ap}*t {/S*/,/,}L*/Lau*/*t .launchd.conf" list getenv /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf\ globalstate --proxy '-n get default' -I --dns -getdnsservers\ "${p[N5]}" -getinfo\ "${p[N5]}" -P -m\ / '' -n1 '-R -l1 -n1 -o prt -stats command,uid,prt' '--regexp --only-files --files com.apple.pkg.*|sort|uniq' -kl -l -s\ / '-R -l1 -n1 -o mem -stats command,uid,mem' '+c0 -i4TCP:0-1023' com.apple.dashboard\ layer-gadgets '-d /L*/Mana*/$USER&&echo On' '-app Safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled' "+c0 -l|awk '{print(\$1,\$3)}'|sort|uniq -c|sort -n|tail -1|awk '{print(\$2,\$3,\$1)}'" );N1=${#c2[@]};for j in {0..9};do c2[N1+j]=SP${p[j]}DataType;done;N2=${#c2[@]};for j in 0 1;do c2[N2+j]="-n ' syscall::'${p[33+j]}':return { @out[execname,uid]=sum(arg0) } tick-10sec { trunc(@out,1);exit(0);} '";done;l=(Restricted\ files Hidden\ apps 'Elapsed time (s)' POST Battery Safari\ extensions Bad\ plists 'High file counts' User Heat System\ load boot\ args FileVault Diagnostic\ reports Log 'Free space (MiB)' 'Swap (MiB)' Activity 'CPU per process' Login\ hook 'I/O per process' Mach\ ports kexts Daemons Agents XPC\ cache Startup\ items Admin\ access Root\ access Bundles dylibs Apps Font\ issues Inserted\ dylibs Firewall Proxies DNS TCP/IP Wi-Fi Profiles Root\ crontab User\ crontab 'Global login items' 'User login items' Spotlight Memory Listeners Widgets Parental\ Controls Prefetching SATA Descriptors );N3=${#l[@]};for i in 0 1 2;do l[N3+i]=${p[5+i]};done;N4=${#l[@]};for j in 0 1;do l[N4+j]="Current ${p[29+j]}stream data";done;A0() { id -G|grep -qw 80;v[1]=$?;((v[1]==0))&&sudo true;v[2]=$?;v[3]=`date +%s`;clear >&-;date '+Start time: %T %D%n';};for i in 0 1;do eval ' A'$((1+i))'() { v=` eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((3+i))'() { v=` while read i;do [[ "$i" ]]&&eval "${c1[$1]} ${c2[$2]}" \"$i\"|'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}";done<<<"${v[$4]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};A'$((5+i))'() { v=` while read i;do '${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$1]}" "$i";done<<<"${v[$2]}" `;[[ "$v" ]];};';done;A7(){ v=$((`date +%s`-v[3]));};B2(){ v[$1]="$v";};for i in 0 1;do eval ' B'$i'() { v=;((v['$((i+1))']==0))||{ v=No;false;};};B'$((3+i))'() { v[$2]=`'${c1[30+i]}' "${s[$3]}"<<<"${v[$1]}"`;} ';done;B5(){ v[$1]="${v[$1]}"$'\n'"${v[$2]}";};B6() { v=` paste -d: <(printf "${v[$1]}") <(printf "${v[$2]}")|awk -F: ' {printf("'"${f[$3]}"'",$1,$2)} ' `;};B7(){ v=`grep -Fv "${v[$1]}"<<<"$v"`;};C0() { [[ "$v" ]]&&sed -E "$s"<<<"$v";};C1() { [[ "$v" ]]&&printf "${f[$1]}" "${l[$2]}" "$v"|sed -E "$s";};C2() { v=`echo $v`;[[ "$v" != 0 ]]&&C1 0 $1;};C3() { v=`sed -E "${s[63]}"<<<"$v"`&&C1 1 $1;};for i in 1 2;do for j in 0 2 3;do eval D$i$j'(){ A'$i' $1 $2 $3; C'$j' $4;};';done;done;{ A0;D20 0 $((N1+1)) 2;D10 0 $N1 1;B0;C2 27;B0&&! B1&&C2 28;D12 15 37 25 8;A1 0 $((N1+2)) 3;C0;D13 0 $((N1+3)) 4 3;D23 0 $((N1+4)) 5 4;D13 0 $((N1+9)) 59 50;for i in 0 1 2;do D13 0 $((N1+5+i)) 6 $((N3+i));done;D13 1 10 7 9;D13 1 11 8 10;D22 2 12 9 11;D12 3 13 10 12;D23 4 19 44 13;D23 5 14 12 14;D22 6 36 13 15;D22 7 37 14 16;D23 8 15 38 17;D22 9 16 16 18;B1&&{ D22 35 49 61 51;D22 11 17 17 20;for i in 0 1;do D22 28 $((N2+i)) 45 $((N4+i));done;};D22 12 44 54 45;D22 12 39 15 21;A1 13 40 18;B2 4;B3 4 0 19;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 5 11;A1 17 41 20;B7 5;C3 22;B4 4 6 21;A3 14 7 32 6;B4 0 7 11;B3 4 0 22;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 8 11;B5 7 8;B1&&{ A2 19 26 23;B7 7;C3 23;};A2 18 26 23;B7 7;C3 24;D13 4 21 24 26;B4 4 12 26;B3 4 13 27;A1 4 22 29;B7 12;B2 14;A4 14 6 52 14;B2 15;B6 14 15 4;B3 0 0 30;C3 29;A1 4 23 27;B7 13;C3 30;D13 24 24 32 31;D13 25 37 32 33;A2 23 18 28;B2 16;A2 16 25 33;B7 16;B3 0 0 34;B2 21;A6 47 21&&C0;B1&&{ D13 21 0 32 19;D13 10 42 32 40;D22 29 35 46 39;};D23 14 1 62 42;D12 34 43 53 44;D12 22 20 32 25;D22 0 $((N1+8)) 51 32;D13 4 8 41 6;D12 26 28 35 34;D13 27 29 36 35;A2 27 32 39&&{ B2 19;A2 33 33 40;B2 20;B6 19 20 3;};C2 36;D23 33 34 42 37;B1&&D23 35 45 55 46;D23 32 31 43 38;D12 36 47 32 48;D13 20 42 32 41;D13 37 2 48 43;D13 4 5 32 1;D13 4 3 60 5;D12 26 48 49 49;B3 4 22 57;A1 26 46 56;B7 22;B3 0 0 58;C3 47;D22 4 4 50 0;D23 22 9 37 7;A7;C2 2;} 2>/dev/null|pbcopy;exit 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
8. 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.
Click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste by pressing command-V. The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.
9. If you see an error message in the Terminal window such as "Syntax error" or "Event not found," enter
exec bash
and press return. Then paste the script again.
10. If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important. If you don't know the password, or if you prefer not to enter it, press the key combination control-C or just press return  three times at the password prompt. Again, the script will still run.
If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for a password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator privileges.
11. The test may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. While it's running, there will be nothing in the Terminal window and no indication of progress. Wait for the line
[Process completed]
to appear. If you don't see it within half an hour or so, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, close the Terminal window and report what happened. No harm will be done.
12. When the test is complete, quit Terminal. The results will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.
At the top of the results, there will be a line that begins with the words "Start time." If you don't see that, but instead see a mass of gibberish, you didn't wait for the "Process completed" message to appear in the Terminal window. Please wait for it and try again.
If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.
13. When you post the results, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "You are not authorized to post." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
14. This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak only for themselves, and I don't necessarily agree with them.
Copyright © 2014 by Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Use Agreement for the Apple Support Communities website ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

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  • HT3275 How do I find/restore files from items in secure home folder? How do I find/restore files that crashed when in finder of secure (File Vault) home folder?

    How do I find/restore files from items in secure (File Vault) home folder? How do I find/restore files that crashed when in finder of secure (File Vault) home folder?  When I go into Time Machine, I see earlier dates but can't see files in my User File. I have File Vault turned on and see my home folder as a sparsebundle.  Do I neede to restore this in order to see files in my home folder.  When I click on it to restore it gives me an estimated time of over 2 hours.  Also tried to restore an Excel file I was working on when computer hung, so lost it without saving or naming it.  Does it exist anyplace and can I restore it?

    Thanks. I had pretty much figured out from other posts that I had better turn off File Vault for my home folder and use a disk utility sparse bundel for little information I wanted to secure. The information about File Vault 2 in Lion was new and useful though.

  • 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.

  • Do i need to deactivate file vault before installing

    I currently have file vault enabled for him home directory. I will use full disk encryption in lion. Do I have to disable file vault first before I install. Also, I plan to make a clone of my current hard drive first, as a precaution. Should I disabled file vault before making that clone?

    no, you do not.  reinstalling adobe software after an os change doesn't require a "new" activation.  it will require another activation for you but it will still be recognized as an activation on the same computer.
    if you made a significant hardware change (harddrive, cpu), then deactivating before the change and activating after the change would be a good idea but adobe is good about accomadating customers that fail to do that.  in fact, many people are unable to do that because of computer loss/harddrive crash and adobe makes it easy to reset their activation count even in those circumstances (via chat, http://www.adobe.com/support/chat/ivrchat.html).

  • Recovering File Vault Data from Back-up

    Hello wonderful Apple people:
    My hard disk crashed this weekend and I had it replaced (same day service) at the Apple store. I had my computer backed-up on a Maxtor External Hard Drive using their Retrospect software. I thought I was all set, however...
    I'm having trouble restoring my data due to what I think are security issues. I had File Vault turned on for my computer (and old hard drive). I have not been able to restore using Retrospect because it wants the back-up sets that were on the old harddrive and doesn't seem to be able to rebuild them. I was able to mount the back-up and transfer all of the data, however I could not log-in with my old user name. I put my password in and it shook it's head at me, until I got to the master password, then it would let me change the password and log in to the abysmal Blue Screen. My back-up is also bootable and when I try to login there, it doens't recognize my password, I reset the password and I get the darned Blue Screen. I can see the files on the External drive and on the new hard drive, but... no accress
    I reset my computer in safe mode and established a new user. Now I can log in, use all the applications, but not access any files. The files are locked under the old user name and when I log in under the old user name I get the Blue Screen. I don't know if it is File Vault issue or a missing file somewhere.
    The sad story here is that my dissertation is due in three weeks. I have most of what I need backed up in other places, but my actual data is in the files that I can't access.
    Oh, one other thing to take into consideration...my combo drive doesn't work so using the Install disk is not an option.
    Any help would be appreciated. I havent found this issue yet on the boards.
    PowerBook G4, 12   Mac OS X (10.4)  

    Since you're backing up to an external drive...IMHO Retrospect is overkill. Retrospect's strength is that you can make multiple copies of a file. In other words, you can recover a version of a file a few changes back. You can make these backups across sets of backup media, so that only your most recent backup needs to be on-site. Also, you can easily automate backups. If you don't need multiple copies of files, and you're not storing backup media off-site, and you can survive without automation, diskutility can clone your HD as often as you need/remember to do it. SuperDuper can aotomate this. Again. Retrospect is a good app, but it requires careful planning and implementation.
    So there's my rant.l Clone your HD to an external as often as you need/remember and but a second external to alternate backups and keep off-site if that's necessary or desired for your particular situation. Use retrospect if you need its extra functionality.
    Glad you had a good backup to rely on.
    Jeff

  • I'm not able to log into my File Vault account after restoring from a Time Machine backup

    My iPhoto database crashed and I lost my entire Library, so I went into Time Machine to restore it from my latest back up.  I wasn't able to get to my iPhoto Library in Time Machine, so in a panic, I just did a total restore.  When that was finished, I wasn't able to log into my account because of File Vault.  I have no idea what to do!  I've tried everything from other posts I've read to no avail.  Where I'm at now is, I've created another Admin account and I've enabled the root user.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

    Try opening Keychain Access (found in /Applications/Utilities), then locate your MobileMe password there (it'll have the same name as your MobileMe username, and will have a MobileMe icon) and delete it.

  • 34GB File Vault sparse image not mounting

    Hi there,
    I have an ibook G4, OS X 10.4.11, Capacity 55.77 GB, Available 5.53 GB
    I've had my home folder (34.69 GB) encrypted with File Vault for about 5 years. A few weeks ago I had to hard shut down when Safari crashed. Upon restart I got the scary "unable to login as this user at this time". I was able to create a new user account. I scoured the internet and followed apple instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2631
    I can see my old sparse image file. But when I get to step 18 above, I get the message: The following disk images failed to mount, lockedouthome.sparseimage, reason--> input/output error
    When I try to back up the sparse image to an external hard drive, I get the message: The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "lockedouthome.sparseimage" could not be read or written.
    Is there anything else I can possibly do before I trash the home folder and start over? I have backups of my itunes and iphoto library, but never got around to backing up the Word documents and web archives that are career related. Please help! I hate to trash it, when I can see the file sitting right there with all my stuff looking like it's still inside (34 GB).
    Thanks,
    unaware filevaulter

    I completely understand the money issue myself.
    But DW is your best cheapest hope of any recovery, in fact I do not even buy a new Mac/OS until DW supports it, that's no guarantee it wiil work though.
    Could you please explain what you mean by "if you don't have an external drive to boot from" in regards to using the Disk Warrior CD or DVD?
    I don't know how you were backing up, nor whether these drives are bootable, but in this day & age it pays to have a bootable Clone of your drive, DW & other Apps can be run from say an external drive to repair your Internal drive... since you cannot repair the HD you're booted from, you need either another boot drive, or a CD/DVD to boot from.
    I use FW drives on most of my Networks and use Tri-Backup...
    http://www.tri-edre.com/english/index.html
    Can't say enough good about Tri-Backup.
    Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
    http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
    Or SuperDuper...
    http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
    Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
    http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html

  • Can't enable File Vault

    Decided to try out Leopard on an external USB drive before overwriting Tiger.
    Clean installation on an external USB drive(Intel Macbook) boots fine.
    File Vault tells me I cannot enable as the Home Folder is not Mac OS Extended Journalled when it is - it's actually Journalled case-sensitive - should that matter?
    Also tried installing a demo of Adobe Dreamweaver and that gives me an error of incompatible volume format.
    Is this a known bug with external USB boots?
    Another thing I can;t do is partition it to try out BootCamp.
    Any ideas?
    AC

    I think the problem with a case-sensitive file system is that not all software vendors make Unix compatible products. If you have two files with the same name save the case, abc.txt and Abc.txt, some programs may crash because they "see" two "identical" files.
    Until all the world agrees on case-sensitive names, then I would not recommend using such a file system. And as long as we have Winders, that won't happen.
    In fact, I suspect some of the problems may well be from MS Office products running on BSD, but that's only a surmise. Then there is the networking problem when "talking" to a file system that is not case-sensitive.
    I have read enough pro and con to consider that the world is not yet ready for case-sensitive file systems, especially on computers with dual-boot capability and that can run BSD and GUI apps at the same time.
    Yes, FV and TM do not really conflict. It's the way FV encrypts your folders. It makes each folder look like a single large file, so TM cannot do anything with it but save it as a unit. If TM could look into the folder that would mean the encryption is useless, right?
    Of course, you can exclude that folder from TM and back it up separately on your own.
    The alternative would be for FV to encrypt each and every file separately, but that would probably slow down the processing more than doing in in one big chunk.
    Also when using FV, TM only backs up after you log out, for obvious reasons (in retrospect), so nothing happens until you do log out, and then you can't turn the box off until TM does its thing.

  • 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

  • How do I use the remote wipe feature for file vault 2 / lion?

    I tried to find a preference panel. I know that for the ios you have to link/setup your device. I tried the find my iphone web site to see if my computer was listed there and it isn't at the moment. Is this new lion feature only available later with icloud? I checked the lion feature page and it lists it with file vault 2 with no asterisk so my guess is it should already now work.
    It would be a pity to think you've setup your computer to find out that you hadn't "activated" your computer/laptop
    Thanks,
    Phillyman

    Hi,
    I'm out of the country on business but probably the only way to figure this out is to call apple or drop by their retail stores. If no one figures this out (and I'm pretty sure there is nothing to figure out at this time). I'll try to call apple when I'm back in august.
    I find it wrong that apple touts this as a feature with no disclaimer. I'm a loyal mac fan for twenty years so I'll continue to buy their prodcuts and I did buy lion the day it came out. BUT a disclaimer (as they have done in the past) would have been nice. I know of at least two mac users who usually don't buy new OS's until they get it with their new laptops that specifically bought lion for this feature since they had read about it in a newspaper article.
    I also thought this was one of the more useful features in lion since my family already "lost" an iPad and we liked to delete our data after our alarm and message didn't work for a day.
    I'm sure  apple has it's reasons for not offering the feature just yet but in that case a disclaimer is a must. I would probably drop the reference remote wipe until I have the infrastructure in place.
    Cheers,
    Phillyman

  • How can I login with my admin user after the "file vault-security option" disabled?

    My HD was full. So i deleted the biggest files related to file vault. After that i disabled the file vault option in security preferences, and restarted the machine. When i tried to connect again, appear the message"error in file vault". How can i fix?

    I have the same problem.  My Mac Mini server will not let me reset pram or safemode.  Can't login.  Help

  • 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.

  • Photoshop CS 4 says to update my drivers. Then every time I try to start a new file, it crashes. I have updated my drivers, but it is still happening.

    Photoshop CS4 is telling me I need to update my graphics drivers. When I try to start a new file, it crashes. I have updated my drivers, but it is still happening. Please help as I cannot use the software at all at this point and I desperately need it. I am using a HP desk top with Windows Vista Home Premium with a NVIDIA graphics card.

    See if HP has a different update.  It may be proprietary, specific to your machine.

  • Forgot Master Password, no acct File Vault: How to get rid of Mst Password?

    Hi -
    I am embarrassed, mortified, and humbled about having to post this because it's not about 'someone I know' but about something careless that I did.
    This morning, I set up a second account with File Vault on my MBA (Late 2010) to keep sensitive files in it. While setting it up, I set a Master Password which I hadn't enabled before this morning. I used the password generator and used one that I dutifully copied on the clipboard with the intention of IMMEDIATELY copying it into my 1Password app. Then I set up the second account with File Vault.
    Well, of course, something distracted me, I habitually copied something else on the clipboard, and I lost the Master Password from my clipboard. (I know, I've been kicking myself ever since...)
    Here's my question: The Master Password is not protecting any content in File Vault and I would like to disable the forgotten Master Password and set up one that I really will remember (at least, that's the plan!). How can I do this?
    I deleted the new account and I have only one other which is the primary administrator account that is not protected by File Vault. Thanks in advance for any help on this!
    (possibly similar to this parallel topic: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13321714&#13321714)

    See this thread:
    *How to reset FileVault master password*
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5822772
    As explained there, and for obvious security reasons, a new master password created in this fashion way will not unlock any pre-existing FileVault accounts. So resetting the master password is only useful after you have turned off FileVault in all existing accounts, as is true in your case.

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