File Vault restore after hard drive failure?

My MacBook Pro was working just fine, and Disk Uility never found any problems (I did a fresh install probably four months ago), then the MBP froze and wouldn't reboot after a forced shutdown. Disk Utility suddenly found massive amounts of errors, when launched from a system dvd, but couldn't save the disk. Instead of trying to get any further on my own, I'm now letting a data recovery company have a go. I'm still waiting to hear from them, but in anticipation of that I'm browsing the Apple Discussions for help, because the problem is that I was using File Vault protection on my laptop.
If the data recovery guys can't restore the disk to it's former glory (so that I can boot from the recovered disk and log into my File Vault protected user account), but are able to recover data from it, is there a way to get my files back?
I don't know anything about using the Terminal or the underlying technology behind File Vault.
Has anyone covered this topic somewhere? Is there some "how-to guide" for restoring a File Vault protected home folder into a new account on a new drive, or something to that effect?
I'm very grateful for any help on the subject.
Thanks!
m.

FileVault is an encrypted disk image which takes the place of your home folder, instead of having a basic "folder" be your home directory. This basically means that unless you have the password to unencrypt the contents then you'll not be able to get your files, which is very secure if you've got valuable data on the computer you dont want other folks to see (patents, etc). This essentially protects your intellectual property and personal information from theft. However, if something goes wrong with the disk image then all your data could be lost.
The most a data recovery company will be able to do is restore the contents of the drive to the point where hopefully the FileVault disk image is intact and can be opened. Without your password they will not be able to see the contents of the disk image, as all the contents will be garbled by the encryption algorithm. Hopefully they can recover the full disk image, but if not then you'll probably lose your data.
If you have a backup of your computer somewhere then you should be able to restore a backup copy of the filevault disk image. Did you have Time Machine enabled for your computer?

Similar Messages

Restoration after Hard Drive Failure

Hello all.
My Powerbook G4 suffered a hard drive failure a couple of months ago, and every bit of information was lost in no-man's land. After seeking help with Apple, I was sent to DriveSavers. Thankfully, they were able to recover 100% of my drive or that's what they tell me anyway. (No need to scold me, I have learned my lesson about backing up EVERYTHING -- especially when the bill arrived from DriveSavers!) The Powerbook was kaput, so I decided to purchase an new iMac. DriveSavers has put my entire Powerbook contents onto several DVD discs, but so far I have had very little luck with actually transferring and using any of it on the iMac. I have been able to copy document files from Appleworks, Photoshop, etc. onto the iMac, and I can open them and use them with no problem. Although, I did have to go back and re-install the actual Photoshop and Appleworks applications from their original software discs since I was unable to successfully copy the applications from the DriveSavers discs onto the iMac. Still, I am in desperate need of certain Apple applications from the Powerbook that just will not appear on the iMac -- things like Address Book, all of my Stickies , plus the other Stickies that were only located on Dashboard (i was a stickies freak), the emails and contacts saved in Mail, the appts. & scheduling in iCal, etc. I cannot successfully access these kinds of things. I am able to copy an entire disc from DriveSavers onto the iMac, but when I launch the Address Book application from that folder, it just opens up the empty, brand new Address Book from the iMac or the new, empty iCal. The same thing happens with other similar programs. (I think iTunes has been the only thing with which I have any kind of success.) I've even rifled through the DVD discs and gone through my old User folder to the Library folder, then the Caches folder, and finally to the .com.apple.AddressBook folder where I extracted just the Metadata folder which clearly contains all of my contacts. When I try to add just the contact cards to the iMac's Address Book application, I still doesn't work and remains empty. The only way I've been able to look at any of my contacts is to use TextEdit to open those contact cards, and then dig through all of the jargon and piece together the info. It's very frustrating and time-consuming. I would just like for my Powerbook to be reincarnated, if you will, here on this new iMac. Is this even possible? I am completely baffled, and beginning to fear that I may have paid thousands of dollars for DVDs that would serve me better if I were lost in the Sahara and needing to signal a plane flying overhead by reflecting them against the sun. If anyone has any advice or tips, I would be very grateful.
Cheers,
Maize
Intel-based iMac Mac OS X (10.4.6)
PowerbookG4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
PowerbookG4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi,
Maybe this article can help :
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106941#2c
Take a look at the 'manual' backup and restore sections of the article.
Good luck!
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Time Machine back-up/restore after hard drive failure - lost data

Our iMac was subject to a hard drive recall. So before getting the hard drive replaced, I did a full Time Machine backup (over wifi to a HD connected to Airport Extreme). Once done, I took the iMac to the Genius Bar and they sent me home with a machine with a new copy of the OS installed.
Came home and upon setting up OSX, I selected something like "restore from Time Machine backup." Told it where the drive was.
I now realize that the most recent back-up that is on that drive is from January 2012. So I lost ten months of data. When I look at Finder at the external drive, in the Backups.backupdb folder, all of the dates there are 2012-01-10-XXXXXXX. There is also a "latest" folder in there, but that also looks old.
So first, does anyone have any suggestions on where to look for this full backup I did? When I enter Time Machine, the time bar on the right only shows "latest" and "January 2012." Interestingly, it does not have older backups either.
Note - the backup I did was a manual one. I stopped having Time Machine do automatic backups because they took way too long over the air. So I would start manual backups about once per month. I never thought to check the hard drive to see if they were there.
Thanks for any help.

I think I have solved half of this. Upon starting the Mac after the disk swap, when I went to restore from Time Machine, I disconnected the drive from Airport Extreme and connected it directly to the Mac via USB. Apparently, this is not ok.
I reconnected the drive to Airport Extreme and now can see all of the backups.
So my question now is whether (1) do I revert to the week-old Time Machine (I want to do this) and (2) do I have to do it over wifi or is there a way for me to access this backup via a direct connection? I'm worried that over wifi, it will take days to restore (it's only 100 GB, but it seems to take forever).
Thanks in advance.

Using Migration Assistant to restore after hard drive failure?

My MacBook's hard drive recently went kaput. The replacement arrived today and I attempted to do a TM restore when booting from the Snow Leopard disc. However, it inccorrectly states "This disk does not have enough space to restore your system." The new hard drive is exactly the same as the old one; both are 640 GB. I have researched this issue for hours and no one seems to know how to fix it, and frankly I am shocked that Apple has failed to recognize this serious problem.
So, my question is, can I use Migration Assistant with a fresh install of SL and get exactly the same results as I would if I had restored via Time Machine? Will I lose any data in the process that I would have had, had I done it via TM?
Another thing: I was messing around in the Migration Assistant window just to see how it worked. I selected everything that was available to be restored. However, it stated there was still around 150 GBs of free space on the drive. I had nowhere near that much free space on the old drive, and one would think that that would have left TM with enough space to go through with the restore. How is this sudden new, free space accounted for?

If you haven't already, use Disk Utility (which should be available early in the Snow Leopard installer boot process) to partition and format the new disk. Select the drive (not the volume), select the Partition tab, click on the Options button, then select "GUID Partition Map Scheme" (or whatever the exact wording is). Then format the volume as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".

Restoring picture and movie files after hard drive failure and repair

I need some help restoring photo/movie files from my external hard drives after my iBook was repaired following a storm. I have backups hidden all over my external hard drives. I have unburned burn folders that may have pictures on them. I was using iPhoto from iLife 05 and iLife 08, and Kodak Easy Share. I have searched on spotlight using ".jpg", "pics", and ".mov" and titles of various images, but I am still missing images that I am fairly sure I duplicated to external hard drives. Any ideas for searching?

Thanks, I just downloaded EasyFind. I ran an initial search and it looked very effective. I will have to manually check the search results to see if it is getting any files I haven't already been able to find.

Can I pull iWeb files back from MobileMe after hard drive failure?

I suffered a recent hard drive failure and while I had my pictures backed up I didn't have my iWeb files back up and don't want to start the website from scratch if at all possible. Is there any way to save the files I uploaded to MobileMe back to my computer so I can continue my website?

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Chapter 2.3 of the iWeb FAQ.org site has tips on using some of the existing image, audio and/or video files in the published site in the reconstruction of the site.
OT

Reinstallation after hard drive failure

I had an sneak SAP NetWeaver 7.01 ABAP installation on my laptop on which I had some important prototypes.
I had a hard drive failure on the laptop and need to access my SAP data. I could backup from the disk after the failure though. Now I need to reinstall SAP and restart with the old database or copy all files to new harddrive.
The simplest way would be to do a clean installation on my new laptop and then replace the maxdb database files with the files of the old installation. However, it does not seem to work since maxdb only accepts to swap files in backup format, not normal database file format...
Does anybody have any idea on how to solve this?
Cheers
Martin

Hi!
It seems that your iPhone is properly connected to the Sync server and that you need to add your computer to your previous account. In order to do so:
# At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options. . In the Options window, click on the Sync tab.
# Click Set Up Firefox Sync
# Under I already have a Firefox Sync account click Connect and then select "I don't have the device with me" just below the three boxes.
If you have already created a new account in your computer and you want to log in with your Firefox Home application, "Sign out" and set up the application again. The data you are going to lose is the one in Firefox Home. If you have restored the information in your desktop browser the data will appear in your iPhone once the sync is done.
Unfortunately, Firefox Home doesn't have the ability to send the bookmarks stored there to your computer so if you need to restore them in your computer and you don't have the Sync Key to restore the account in your computer, your only option is to copy them manually.
I hope this information helps you.

How do I uninstall and reinstall CS3 after hard drive failure?

Hi. I suffered a recent hard drive failure on a Mac Pro. I didn't have a backup, like a dummy. The hard drive fails to boot so I installed OS on new blank hard drive and attempted to drag over whatever I could see and find from old drive onto the new one. I tried to start CS3 after doing this but it gives me an error: "LIcensing for this product has stopped working. You cannot use this product at this time. You must repair problem by uninstalling and reinstalling this product or contact IT Admin or Adobe Customer support" When I go to Utilities to find uninstall for Adobe the file is not there. WHen I try to reinstall from disk it says "setup error; setup has encountered an error and cannot continue. COntact Adobe Customer service support for assistance". I contacted them via chat and they told me they cannot help me and to post this issue here. Is there a way to resolve this? Am I just missing a file or something that will resolve the issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

You can't install applications like that. Use the original disks to
install the software.

Rebuilding After Hard-Drive Failure

My hard-drive failed a few months ago. After replacing the hard-drive, I recovered my iTunes library (music only) from a back-up of the failed hard-drive. My music now syncs between devices via iTunes Match, and I have successfully transferred all of the app and movie purchases from my devices (iPhone and iPad) to my desktop. However, I have one movie that was downloaded to the iTunes library on my desktop post hard-drive failure using a redemption code from a Blue-Ray/DVD/Digital bundle. How do I get that movie to upload to my iPad? If I plug the iPad into my desktop, and I try to sync movies, iTunes tells me that this iPad is currently syncing to a different iTunes library and warns me that if I continue, everything on my iPad will be erased and replaced by the contents of this iTunes library. I have a huge number of apps organized in folders. I am afraid that I will lose all of those folders, and I will have to reorganize my apps if I proceed with the sync. Is there any other way to get the movie onto my iPad?

You should be able to:
Backup the device to the new installation
Transfer your purchases into a newly authorized library
Recover any other media using third party tools as suggested in this post from forum regular Zevoneer
Restore the device from the backup
This process should switch the association of the device to the new library, preserving the data and settings in your apps.
May also be prudent to attempt a backup to iCloud directly from the device before you start... Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup > iCloud Backup > On. It won't save any media but it would preserve the general account settings and documents in case anything goes wrong while you are trying to extract your other data.
When you get it all fixed, make a backup!
tt2

Sync after hard drive failure.

Im at my wits end-I really am. Why on earth is I Tunes so chuffin awkward.
Right after a hard drive failure I've now gone and purchased a refurb desktop. Fortunately on my previous I Tunes library the default location for the library was on an external hard drive.
Following the simple instructions I transferred that music folder onto my desktop and into a folder called I Tunes Library. I then dragged and dropped that folder into I Tunes.
I attempted to sync my I Pod but the error message was stated there was not enough room on my I Pod Touch. I found this curious because my entire I Tunes library only amounted to 47gb and my touch is 60gb.
I found out the reason for this was because some of the the library I had imported from my external hard drive had duplicated some of the music thus making my library larger than 60gb.
As I Tunes doesnt allow you to sync from your touch to a new I Tunes library (why???Grrrr) I completed a factory reset wiping all of my music and once again tried syncing from I Tunes.
To my horror about a third of the library has duplicated and even after manually removing those duplicates and a lot of my music is missing from I Tunes HOWEVER on my external hard drive that missing music is showing there?
Can anyone help??

Hi!
It seems that your iPhone is properly connected to the Sync server and that you need to add your computer to your previous account. In order to do so:
# At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options. . In the Options window, click on the Sync tab.
# Click Set Up Firefox Sync
# Under I already have a Firefox Sync account click Connect and then select "I don't have the device with me" just below the three boxes.
If you have already created a new account in your computer and you want to log in with your Firefox Home application, "Sign out" and set up the application again. The data you are going to lose is the one in Firefox Home. If you have restored the information in your desktop browser the data will appear in your iPhone once the sync is done.
Unfortunately, Firefox Home doesn't have the ability to send the bookmarks stored there to your computer so if you need to restore them in your computer and you don't have the Sync Key to restore the account in your computer, your only option is to copy them manually.
I hope this information helps you.

How do I recover PE 12 after hard drive failure?

On February 25, 2014 I purchased Adobe Premiere Elements 12. The page 'my-products-services' lists it along with all of the other Adobe products that I have purchased for my Windows 7 64-bit desktop PC.
I have been successful in re-installing CS6 Design and Web Premium after a catastrophic hard drive failure last month; however, am presently stymied in trying to even locate where on the Adobe website it might be allowable for me to re-install. For reasons unknown, My license is listed for PE12, but my order isn't listed under account-orders.html#myorderhistory. CS6 is shown on that page and was how I was able to reinstate CS6.
Does anybody know what I should do next?
Gratefully yours,
Kelly

Kelly
I would definitely contact Adobe via its Adobe Chat to sort out the situation with your order and Adobe's record of it. You did purchase from Adobe direct? I am assuming yes.
What computer operating system did you download your Premiere Elements 12 to when you purchased it from Adobe?
For contact with Adobe's Chat, please click on...
Contact Customer Care
Premiere Elements
Membership, Account, Payment
Payments, Invoices, Orders
Chat Panel
The link is set to that location. If the link set does not hold, then you will need to navigate to the Chat Panel using the titles as guides.
At this moment, the Chat Panel is active and ready to be used.
However, for the immediate situation, you can download Premiere Elements 12 tryout files from the following web site. Be sure to read and carry out carefully (to the word) the Note: Very Important Instructions on the web page so that you do not get Access Denied. You can use the download and install as a tryout or insert your purchased serial number into the installation files to make it your working copy. Assure that you are selecting the correct files as replacements specific to what you purchased.
http://prodesigntools.com/photoshop-elements-12-direct-download-links-premiere.html
Any questions or need clarification, please do not hesitate to ask.
Thank you.
ATR

Question about activation key for pre-installed software after hard drive failure.

I had a hard drive failure on my MacBook Pro last week and had it replaced by Apple. When I restored my computer with a Time Machine backup, Office 2011 wants an activation key to start up again. Problem is, I had Office pre-installed when I bought my MacBook by Apple. Where do I get the activation key to get it working again?
Thanks
Q

Do you still have the signons.sqlite and key3.db files from the IT setup?
You can find the sync account password and the sync (recovery) key in the password manager on computers where a sync account with a specific e-mail address has been set up.
Look for:
* chrome://weave (Mozilla Services Password)
* chrome://weave (Mozilla Services Encryption Passphrase)

Help with Organizer (Ver 11) after hard drive failure

I have Elements 11 and am an experienced user. Problem is with the Organizer program. Hard drive (Network attached drive) with 16,000+ images failed. Actual Organizer catalog is stored on my regular computer C:\ drive. ONLY the photos were stored on the external drive. I replaced drive with a new drive (also external network attached). When I run Organizer, all the thumbnails indicate the files are "offline." When I run "reconnect files" from the menu bar, it tells me there are no missing files. If I use the file info window (in Organizer) and click on "Location" it tells me the file location ON THE ORIGINAL DRIVE is offline. If I go ahead and reconnect the file from that window, it does ok... BUT... when I go back to the Organizer and open that image full screen, it does NOT show the name tags of the subject when you mouse-over the displayed image. The "name" tags are still listed in the tag window, but no name on the screen. It looks as if the catalog is somehow looking for that very specific old drive, and that the tag database can't connect to the image on the replacement drive.
What happened to the database of all the people's names that are actually shown on-screen for each image?? The catalog on C:\ is intact and untouched by the external drive failure. How can I get Organizer to recognize all the image files on the new hard drive? I have screen shots of all the messages, etc., if that would help.
Thanks..... Earl

First of all, did you backup your catalog/media files via the catalog manager ? In that case the answer is to do a restore to the new custom location.
Since you are asking for help, I presume you have no backup available.
Now, the explanation for the problem. Network drives are considered 'offline' just like CD or DVDs when there are not active. On the other hand, each of those removable storage media are identified in the catalog database with a unique internal identifier which has the letter drive, device serial number, name and type of device. I am not competent about network drives, but I am sure that pluging another network drive will show different properties. Your drive will be considered offline.
Then, when you want to reconnect, the organizer does not consider the files are missing, it waits for you to plug in the original drive.
What solution ?
What could you do to enforce the Organizer to recognize the new drive as the old one ?
Let's suppose your files had not been on a network drive, but on an external USB drive. Then all your files would have been seen as 'missing' because the recorded paths of your media files would have been different for thedrive identifier, and reconnecting could have been a solution.
The main problem I see is that I am pretty sure that you can't tell the catalog manager how to change the identifier of the offline drive, and I can't see any easy workaround. If someone knows a way, I would be extremely interested! Would it be possible to fool the Organizer to identify the new network drive with the same parameters as the old one?
So, what I would do in your case would be to use an external sqlite database manager to look at the catalog.pse11db file and see how I could change directly the identification of the new drive.
I am pretty sure I could do that if the files had been on an external USB drive (not considered 'offline'). It's worth trying that for a network drive.
Tell me if you want to try such a solution. Otherwise, if you have 'written metadata to files', your only immediate chance is to start a new catalog and import from the new drive.

Data Recovery After Hard Drive Failure!

Ok, basically, I've got a 2 1/2 year old iBook G4 with a bombed hard drive, and unfortunately, the last time I backed up was around 3 months ago. Here's what happened right before the crash: some applications like Widgets and Safari were acting fluky, and it wouldn't let me open Word documents, so I restarted, because I thought it might have something to do with the fact that i had downloaded the new version of itunes not that long ago and hadn't restarted since. well, when i restarted, the gray screen with the wheel and the apple symbol went on for a really long time, and then the blue screen came up with the cursor, but nothing else happened, and the blue screen just stayed there. as far as i know, the hard drive wasn't making any unusual noises, just the usual occasional soft sounds that my hard drive has always made (there are usual sounds, right?) a piece of information that might be useful is that the hard drive was almost full (it only had about 5 GB left, which i understand is how much you should leave) could this have caused the failure maybe? anyway, i tried using the hard drive as a target and tried getting another computer to recognize it and pull the files off, but that didn't work. so, i brought it into the apple store, and they got it to boot up but using some external hard drive, i think. they tried disk utility, but that didn't see my hard drive. then the tried disk warrior, and that saw it and repaired it or something, but then it couldn't get the drive to mount. so, i'm assuming that because disk warrior didn't work and couldn't get it to mount, then other software like data rescue, etc... won't either. like all computer users, i've got some REALLY REALLY important data on there, and all the data recovery places i've gotten quotes from are pretty pricey. if the drive doesn't require physical data recovery, only non-physical, as i hope, the cheapest is still $350. even so, the person on the phone there didn't seem to know nearly as much as the people at the more pricier places. so, are there any other options besides expensive data recovery? i read something about using dd - a unix thing, but i don't know the first thing about it (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050302225659382) so i'm not sure i want to risk messing it up even more. and, if worse comes to worst, then i'll use a data recovery place... but can anyone tell me if they've used any of the data recovery companies below, and which ones are good?
(first three do evaluation for free, and then you decide if you want to continue based on more accurate price idea)
MacintoshDataRecovery.com
$500 non physical
$1100-1600 physical
Heroic Efforts
http://www.heroicdata.com/data_recovery
$350 non physical
ships to another (very expensive) place if physical
ACS Data Recovery
http://www.acsdata.com/index.htm
$600-700 non physical
DriveSavers.com
(recommended by Apple, probably the best, but the most steep, too)
could cost anywhere from $500-$2700 and $200 evaluation fee even if data is unrecoverable
Since this is our fourth hard drive failure in four different iBooks in 2 1/2 years, i am starting to become seriously disillusioned about the quality of the hardware Apple uses...not that i would ever get a dell or anything, but still....
THANK YOU in advance for any tips you might be able to offer, and also for reading this extremely long post!
katie
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I have read good reports concerning Data Rescue although I have not used it myself.
Once you get your data back, focus on a regular (even daily) backup routine, because as you know only so well, the question is not if a drive will fail, it's when.
My condolences, by the way.

IPhone synch after hard drive failure

I have an iMac 7.1 and after a total hard drive failure I had a new drive installed. Everything was wiped out, but at least I have the iTunes library still on my iPhone Here starts the problem.
After reading posts for the better half of a day I tried all suggested approaches, however the descriptions for doing it within iTunes don't seem to work (they insist on erase and synch the new (empty) library. I authorized the iTunes account on the iMac - still the same.
There are programs out there that rip the content from the iPhone, something I think is the wrong approach. Apple has to provide a way for its customers that have done nothing wrong to get their data back from a legal copy on the iPhone. This right way will likely exist, I just can't find it.
Anyone can point me in the right direction?

Hi, what no back up? -- well lets be honest everything should be covered by Apple & iTunes but!!
I use SENUTI @ odd times & it's an excellent App...why you are so against 3rd party app's I'm not sure..
If you have friend with a Mac & has some music you like you can always set up SHARING & dragNdrop..
With my first mac (ibookG4) I lost all my music etc.. a lesson learned, always back up otherwise it's a long arduous task burning your cd's one by one..If you purchased your music thro' iTunes you can contact them, at times have allowed me to Re download purchased items....L

File Vault restore after hard drive failure?

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