Filevault home directory encryption '22 minutes remaining'

Question

Hi all,
I'll try and keep this as informative as possible.
I'm running snow leopard, all update to date with latest patches. (17" MBP)
Im running a 500gb harddrive.
Last night I enabled Filevault and selected the secure erase option.
It quickly reached 30 minutes remaning, so I went ahead and went to bed, leaving it to do its stuff.
When I got up today, the screen was asleep, I pressed the space bar (trackpad did nothing).
It woke up right away, however on the screen it read '22 minutes remaining' at the 'encrypting home folder' screen.
(like this: http://www.wap.org/journal/encryption/timeremainingsm.jpg )
The progress bar is about 50%.
I monitored it over the course of 45 minutes and nothing changed. The progress bar did not increase, the time reamaining did not decrease.
There is a spinning progress circle on the screen & the mouse does not appear at all.
The hard drive sounds like a hive of activity, as if something is happening, but the visual output does not indicate this.
Does anyone have any experience with a similar situation? And if so, can you reccommend the best course of action on my part?
Many thanks in advance to all for reading this and if any assistance can be offered!
Regards
Ross

Answer 1

Some of your user files (not system files) have incorrect permissions or are locked. This procedure will unlock those files and reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Step 1
If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.
Enter the following command in the Terminal window (triple-click, copy, and paste):
sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-
The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2 (optional)
Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if you prefer not to take it, or if it doesn't solve the problem.
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
          Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:
res
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.
Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button
Select
           ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.