Filevault; external hard drive encryption

i was wondering if i encrypted my external hard drive, would the files i have stored in it be deleted?

No, but all files on all drives must be backed up, or you certainly will lose them eventually.

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Time machine - how to stop external hard drive encryption?

Hi all
I've just gotten a larger hard drive and more RAM for my 1.5 year old MacBook Pro, running OSX 10.7.5. I restored my system using the latest Time Machine backup at the time from the external HD I want to continue to use. Somewhere along the line, after the restore, I must have replied "yes" to encrypt the external HD and now it's dong the encryption thing for hours and hours and hours. Looking at the contents of the external HD, it appears to have done backups whenever I've attached the external drive, so I think my data is secure.
The external drive is a Western Digital 2 TB, with a power cord. I'm using it for Time Machine and my Aperture vault. I may want to add my Bootcamp partition to the Time Machine, though I've been backing that up separately.
Is there any way I can suspend this encryption and set it to "no encryption" now that I've done the deed? I've looked through the community discussions on this (as well as Time Machine Help, and on the internet), and I don't see anything that guides me in this (at least, only something from earlier this year that indicates that I would have to reformat the external drive - is this still the case?).
Can I just shut down my MBP with this process going on? This HD is not USB powered, so I can't just carry the two machines to another location, as the external is plugged in and unplugging it would shut it off.
Would upgrading to Mountain Lion help with this situation? I'm thinking I want to do this anyway, as I like the sound of some of the new features.
Thanks so much.

The problem here is the way Apple chooses to implement Time Machine Backup in 10.6.x to a Network volume. When TM first came out myself and a bunch of similarly naive Unix hackers figured we could get the best of both worlds by backing up with Time Machine to a backed up or otherwise redundant network volume using Time Machine. But in the beginning TM didn't backup to network volumes. It does now by creating a sparse bundle on the network volume and backing up to the Sparse bundle as if it were a physical, local, disk drive. I seems logical to infer that Time Machine was written to backup to locally connected disk drives which differ from network disk drives in one very important respect: You can tell a local, physical disk drive that you need to know the status of any given write operation and you can trust that result with a reasonably high degree of confidence. That same can't be said for a write to network drive so Apple fakes it by creating a Pseudo Drive or Disk Image Drive on the network volume and writing way. The Sparse Bundle Error comes up when the Pseudo Drive wasn't put away correctly. There are filesystem repair programs to fix this condition which are described in other threads. Dig around for "fsck sparse bundle" on Google the next time this happens and you may be able to rescue things.

Filevault Encryption for Moved Home Directory and External Hard Drive

This posting consists of two different, yet associated, questions.
Here is my relevant equipment:
MacBook Pro
Micronet Platinum RAID Pro, 2.5 terabytes (uses: video editing, backup)
LaCie Rugged All-Terrain Hard Disk, 160 gigabytes (use: additional storage for MacBook)
*Question 1:*
I currently use FileVault to encrypt my Home directory on my MacBook Pro. However, I am running out of hard drive space, given that I do a lot of work with film and have a lot of large applications such as Final Cut Studio 2 and Creative Suite 3 Master Collection fully installed and taking up a lot of space.
Hence, I need to move my Home directory to an external hard drive to free up a nice amount of space, and I would like to keep the applications on the Macintosh hard drive to ensure that they run optimally (though the Lacie drive does use FireWire 800, so perhaps it would not matter?). +Leaving my Home directory unencrypted is not an option.+
Question: If I use the Advanced Options for my Account within Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (Apple menu > System Preferences > Accounts > (right click) Advanced Options...) to change the location of my Home directory to the Lacie external hard drive, will FileVault still encrypt my Home directory at this new location?
*Question 2*
In the past, FileVault would not encrypt data on external hard drives—only data within a Home directory.
Of course, I understand that there are many ways to eschew this limitation of FileVault (e.g., create a secure image with Disk Utility, use third-party software, et cetera). Still, it would be nice to have this functionality built right into the Mac OS as part of FileVault, for ease, reliability, and so on.
Question: With Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, is there now any way to use FileVault to encrypt files other than those within the Home directory? That is, any files that I drop into the Lacie hard drive (for simplicity, let’s assume outside of the Home directory option I asked about above in the first question) would be encrypted by FileVault.
Thanks.

More information.
Home Folder - Move

Greeting, I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the in

Greeting,
I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the information on it so could you tell me what kind of encryption will be used or is there any way to recover the information?
Thanks!

I think FileVault is used to encryp internal hard drive but I wanna encrypt an external hard drive with Mac OS Extended Journaled Encrypted which is completely different!

No "decrypt" choice in contextual menu - need to decrypt an encrypted external hard drive

I have a Firewire 800 external hard drive that I had previously encrypted using the contextual menu. I want to change the password on this drive so I'm trying to decrypt it and re-encrypt it while assigned a new password. I have Filevault 2 enabled on my iMac but this shouldn't affect this external drive. I also have a Firmware Password enabled on this iMac, but again, this shouldn't prevent a "decrypt" option in the contextual menu.
"Encrypt" is present in the contextual menu. When I attempt to use this option it appears to allow me to assign a new password. When I click "Encrypt" I get this message: "The target Core Storage volume is already encrypted." It's true that the drive is already encrypted, that's why I'm trying to decrypt it.
I'm running the latest version of Mountain Lion on a late 2012 iMac. I've searched online for someone with a similar problem, but haven't found this problem reference. Does anyone have any idea as to why "decrypt" is not an option on this external drive, but it is on similar external drives that are also already encrypted. Thanks.

Thanks for your help, Linc. By the way, I mistakenly said I had Filevault and Firmware turned on. Actually, they are NOT enabled on the iMac. Here's what I got in my Text Edit window:
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         121.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         999.3 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *1.1 TB     disk2
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk3
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage OWC 750 GB Archive      749.8 GB   disk3s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk3s3
/dev/disk4
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk4
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         499.8 GB   disk4s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk4s3
/dev/disk5
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS OWC 500 GB             *499.4 GB   disk5
/dev/disk6
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk6
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk6s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         2.0 TB     disk6s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk6s3
/dev/disk7
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS LaCie Porsche 2TB T... *2.0 TB     disk7
/dev/disk8
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS OWC 750 GB Archive     *749.5 GB   disk8
CoreStorage logical volume groups (4 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 77833580-B5D6-4969-90F2-69629D851399
|   =========================================================
|   Name:         Macintosh HD
|   Status:       Online
|   Size:         1120333979648 B (1.1 TB)
|   Free Space:   114688 B (114.7 KB)
|   |
|   +-< Physical Volume 92948041-5F99-48EE-BA6A-AC5E2D801AA1
|   |   ----------------------------------------------------
|   |   Index:    0
|   |   Disk:     disk0s2
|   |   Status:   Online
|   |   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)
|   |
|   +-< Physical Volume 2AFC48E4-8F84-4353-B5BE-80F82FCC5E60
|   |   ----------------------------------------------------
|   |   Index:    1
|   |   Disk:     disk1s2
|   |   Status:   Online
|   |   Size:     999345127424 B (999.3 GB)
|   |
|   +-> Logical Volume Family 9896E84D-A633-4439-9230-E793C140F99F
|       ----------------------------------------------------------
|       Encryption Status:       Unlocked
|       Encryption Type:         None
|       Conversion Status:       NoConversion
|       Conversion Direction:    -none-
|       Has Encrypted Extents:   No
|       Fully Secure:            No
|       Passphrase Required:     No
|       |
|       +-> Logical Volume 73192A6E-2FD8-48C2-9586-DF06DEAF832C
|           ---------------------------------------------------
|           Disk:               disk2
|           Status:             Online
|           Size (Total):       1111826497536 B (1.1 TB)
|           Size (Converted):   -none-
|           Revertible:         No
|           LV Name:            Macintosh HD
|           Volume Name:        Macintosh HD
|           Content Hint:       Apple_HFS
|
+-- Logical Volume Group D3A1E4E0-2FAB-4620-9E30-A52F1D8967EA
|   =========================================================
|   Name:         LaCie Porsche 2TB Time Machine
|   Status:       Online
|   Size:         2000054960128 B (2.0 TB)
|   Free Space:   16777216 B (16.8 MB)
|   |
|   +-< Physical Volume 5616866C-0E7B-4CFB-9ADF-F8B3C6D558A2
|   |   ----------------------------------------------------
|   |   Index:    0
|   |   Disk:     disk6s2
|   |   Status:   Online
|   |   Size:     2000054960128 B (2.0 TB)
|   |
|   +-> Logical Volume Family 88D4CB4E-CD4B-4DEF-87FF-2C6C0C7FFF48
|       ----------------------------------------------------------
|       Encryption Status:       Unlocked
|       Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
|       Conversion Status:       Complete
|       Conversion Direction:    -none-
|       Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
|       Fully Secure:            Yes
|       Passphrase Required:     Yes
|       |
|       +-> Logical Volume C207E3E4-B7A5-4440-A786-34251950978C
|           ---------------------------------------------------
|           Disk:               disk7
|           Status:             Online
|           Size (Total):       1999719411712 B (2.0 TB)
|           Size (Converted):   -none-
|           Revertible:         Yes (unlock and decryption required)
|           LV Name:            LaCie Porsche 2TB Time Machine
|           Volume Name:        LaCie Porsche 2TB Time Machine
|           Content Hint:       Apple_HFS
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 1D616DCF-5201-4DF4-AF4F-4D8574ADA3AF
|   =========================================================
|   Name:         OWC 750 GB Archive
|   Status:       Online
|   Size:         749812400128 B (749.8 GB)
|   Free Space:   16777216 B (16.8 MB)
|   |
|   +-< Physical Volume 67B9DE8F-CEB9-47E7-92AD-9C0F2D02ED66
|   |   ----------------------------------------------------
|   |   Index:    0
|   |   Disk:     disk3s2
|   |   Status:   Online
|   |   Size:     749812400128 B (749.8 GB)
|   |
|   +-> Logical Volume Family 84C4B3C3-63DE-4487-A285-79733D638B14
|       ----------------------------------------------------------
|       Encryption Status:       Unlocked
|       Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
|       Conversion Status:       Complete
|       Conversion Direction:    -none-
|       Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
|       Fully Secure:            Yes
|       Passphrase Required:     Yes
|       |
|       +-> Logical Volume 9B356069-1F11-44B5-A419-D395B9E5D9F6
|           ---------------------------------------------------
|           Disk:               disk8
|           Status:             Online
|           Size (Total):       749476851712 B (749.5 GB)
|           Size (Converted):   749476851712 B (749.5 GB)
|           Revertible:         Yes (unlock and decryption required)
|           LV Name:            OWC 750 GB Archive
|           Volume Name:        OWC 750 GB Archive
|           Content Hint:       Apple_HFS
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 9FD47542-59CC-4A5F-B2D6-4D58B15F4DEC
    =========================================================
    Name:         OWC 500 GB
    Status:       Online
    Size:         499763888128 B (499.8 GB)
    Free Space:   16777216 B (16.8 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume A52C4498-4C0A-47FB-A8AD-A16F1A1FAAA5
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk4s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     499763888128 B (499.8 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 9C908835-59DB-4B08-AF44-E85E05135A37
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       Converting
        Conversion Direction:    backward
        Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 79B8EE82-FCD9-4EDC-A7D7-C321A7CED24B
            Disk:               disk5
            Status:             Online
            Size (Total):       499428339712 B (499.4 GB)
            Size (Converted):   333646397440 B (333.6 GB)
            Revertible:         Yes (unlock and decryption required)
            LV Name:            OWC 500 GB
            Volume Name:        OWC 500 GB
            Content Hint:       Apple_HFS

Encrypting external Hard drive not working

Hello I am trying to encrypt my external hard drives but I am getting that message A Recovery System for the targeted disk is required. and I can not find anything saying how to properlly do that. When I serach how to encrypt the drives it is said just right click on the drive and choose encrypt and put the password and thats it, Nothing is said how to propverly format the drive before hand etc .
any help appricated
bernd
just a update on another drive i get that message " A partition, not a whole disk, is required for this operation."

You're trying to encrypt a bootable volume. To do that, boot from it and activate FileVault in the Security & Privacy preference pane. It's only possible if the OS X version is 10.7 or later.

My disk utility option to turn off encryption does not highlight so I can't turn off the encryption of my external hard drive with time machine back up

I have an iMac and Retina MBP. I use Time Capsule for backup of iMac and I wanted to use an external hard drive attached to time capsule as time machine backup. The problem is that I encrypted previously that external hard drive and now Time Capsule does not recognize it.
When I try to turn off encryption with Disk Utility, that option is not highlighted so I cannot use it.
I tried with terminal but it answers The given UUID is a not a CoreStorage Logical Volume UUID

Can you plug in the hard drive directly to your MBP and then decrypt the hard drive? You should be able to do this by opening up Finder and then either right clicking the hard drive (holding down two fingers and clicking) or holding down ctrl and then clicking on the hard drive.

Cannot remove encryption from external hard drive

I have a Hitachi 500gb external Hard drive that I encrypted with Bit locker on a Windows 7 computer. After 3 years I want to use the Hard drive for something else and find that I can't decrypt it. I no longer have the computer that I originally decrypted
it on so it doesn't show up until I plug it in to use it. Can someone please help? Thank You.

it on so it doesn't show up until I plug it in to use it.
What's you meaning of this? to decrypt a external hard drive, you must have its encrypt password. If your problem caused by Hard disk is placed too long, you may need to contact Hitachi for further support or format the Hard disk.
Roger Lu
TechNet Community Support

HT3275 I encrypted my WD elements SE external hard drive with Time Machine and now everytime i enter my password it shuts downs my mac book pro. I contacted WD and they say its an issue with Time Machine?

Any advice?

Hi, I tried your advice and it tells me the external drive is ok, and the ERASE section is grey, probably because I encrypted the disk!?!
Still the same issue: every time I enter my password to access the external hard drive, it restarts the macbook and I get a screen that says: the computer restarted because of a problem... so frustrating!
Any other ideas?

How do I encrypt my external hard drive and subsequently a specific file within it, using my Mac? I tried creating a disk image but permission was denied.

Encrypting an external hard drive and specific folders within. Permission denied using disk image.

VKP90 wrote:
When I tried to encrypt a single file within the hard drive itself, I got the following: Disk Utility Progress: Unable to create "Name of my file" (Permission Denied).
When I tried encrypting the entire hard disk itself, I got: A GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme is required.
I have also currently used Time Machine on the external hard drive, along with saving other data. Hence, I am not sure if partitioning is going to delete any of this (a video I watched mentioned that using the + button when creating partitions retains current data). Backing up the external hard drive is out of the option since it is the back up to my Mac.
You can't encrypt a single file. I'm not sure what you did to try. You can make an encrypted disk image which begins with a folder, if desired. Or, you can just create a blank, encrypted disk image, then move your desired files into that.
While you could partition off the free space without erasing the disk, you cannot encrypt it because you need a GUID Partition table which requires you to repartition the entire drive, not just the free space.

Encrypting files on external hard drive

I am wondering how to encrypt file on external hard drive. Is it best to use the disk image system?
Also, can I make disk images flexible, so that I may keep adding files to it in the future? Ideally there are a few GBs of info I would like to store this way, but will add more later.
Thanks for any ideas!
Message was edited by: Mark Hilderbrandt

Mark Hilderbrandt wrote:
I am wondering how to encrypt file on external hard drive. Is it best to use the disk image system?
I think so, but I haven't used anything else.
Also, can I make disk images flexible, so that I may keep adding files to it in the future? Ideally there are a few GBs of info I would like to store this way, but will add more later.
Use a sparse image. You can set a large size, but it will only take up the space that you store in the image. You can keep adding until you hit the max size you set or run out of disk space. There are ways to resize the disk image, also.
Thanks for any ideas!
Message was edited by: Mark Hilderbrandt

Encryption of external hard drive was interrupted! Now I can't repair it.

I was encrypting one of my external hard drives, and the connection was lost during encryption. And now I can not repair it, I can't do anything with it.
It was used as an Windows external harddrive before (NTFS?). I tried to make it an extended mac harddrive, encrypted and journaled.
I get a message where it says: Your computer can not read the disc you have inserted in the drive (translated from danish).
So I have 3 options:
Intialiser (not sure what's it is in english) .. Ignore and Eject.
but nothing happens when I select either of those options, it just asks for my password again.
Hope someone can help. I've searched everywhere on the web. And I'm starting to think I might as well throw it away. Which *****, because it was quite expensive.

I wouldn't trust the drive after an error like that, but if you want to use it, repartition in Disk Utility. I'm assuming you have backups of the data.

HT4790 Can I use FileVault with and external hard drive?

Can I use FileVault2 to secure an external hard drive?

FileVault2 is really just a marketing name for encrypting the startup volume. You can right-click on any connected volume and encrypt it.

How to decrypt external hard drive on lion filevault

How to decrypt external hard drive on lion filevault

To do this, follow these steps:
1. Open the OS X Terminal utility and run the following command:
diskutil cs list
The output of this command will look like a hierarchical tree. Locate the long alphanumeric code next to the words "Logical Volume Group" (this code is called a "UUID"), and copy this code to the clipboard by highlighting it and then pressing Command-C.
2. Run the following command to destroy the logical volume group, replacing "UUID" with the alphanumeric string from the first command.
diskutil cs delete UUID
When done this will clear the volume and allow it to be formatted and otherwise customized. See the following screenshot for what this should look like (the two commands are underlined in blue:

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation it gives me an input/output error and stops. Any tips?

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation and after having selected both my destination and source drives, the operation begins but soon fails due to input/output error. If I try to create an image of the drive it gives me the same error message. Any help would be much appreciated.

Disk Utility only creates a image of the drive, so it's no help getting exactly what you want, which is your files. If the file structure is messed up or the drive is failing then it's no help.
If you have a external boot drive and you can't access the internal non-booting drive though the typical Finder and windows to transfer your files via drag and drop methods, then you need to install Data Rescue on the external boot drive and it will do as best as it can to recover your files. (works on non-encrypted/non-Filevaulted drives only)
.Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Are you sure you have hard drive failure, or that OS X isn't merely not booting?
Because if the drive is working physically, then there is a host of fixes
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents#/

Filevault; external hard drive encryption

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