Filevault wont switch off?

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Level 1

4 points

Filevault wont switch off?

Filevault has been encrypting my computer for weeks now, I honestly cant remember when i turned it on but it must've been about a month ago.

I've been enduring it for a while now and now when i try to check if its finished and if i can turn it off, the turn off button is greyed out and it claims to still be decrypting but it doesnt give me a time frame?

The time indicator bar is fully blue which must mean its finished but it looks like its frozen for some reason? I have a project due sometime soon that I need to finish ASAP and Filevault is slowing down my iMac tenfold. I'll admit that my iMac is old but it was never this slow until I turned Filevault on. What should I do please??

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.13

Posted on May 2, 2020 9:32 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

May 4, 2020 4:43 PM in response to ilhaam226

Highly recomend these...

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

And if you plan on keeping it add at least 16 GB of RAM...

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/2011/DDR3_21.5_27

No wonder it's so slow... 4GB of RAM isn't really enough to even run the OS by itself anymore.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

May 3, 2020 3:39 PM in response to ilhaam226

Forgot to ask, is this a USB1 Drive, or what?

In Activity Monitor>Disk Tab what read/write speeds is it showing?

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Answer 3

ilhaam226 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2020 6:12 PM in response to BDAqua

I don't think its out of space since i'm only using 200gb out of around 500, but if its dying jeez that sounds sad :( What do you propose I do then?? I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to these things.

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

May 3, 2020 6:26 PM in response to ilhaam226

Do you have a recent Time Machine backup or a clone?

If not I'm not sure what er can do, but normally you'd get an external drive then use Time Machine to Backup or CCC to clone it.

Carbon Copy Cloner...

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Not sure if it works in the midst of an encryption or not.

If you told me your exact Mac model I could recommend a good external drive.

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Answer 5

ilhaam226 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2020 12:55 PM in response to BDAqua

I pasted that and it said 12%...If its only decrypted 12% in around a month then I wonder how long its going to take until the process is finished. Anyways thanks for the answer. :)

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

May 3, 2020 1:23 PM in response to ilhaam226

You might set a record, what size is the Disk?

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Answer 7

ilhaam226 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2020 3:31 PM in response to BDAqua

Lmao jeez I hope not, and the capacity is 498GB

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Answer 8

ilhaam226 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2020 5:30 PM in response to BDAqua

Its a Macintosh Hard Drive, and its showing:

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Answer 9

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

May 3, 2020 5:50 PM in response to ilhaam226

Ah, if that's an internal drive I'd think it is about out of Free Space or dying. :(

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Answer 10

ilhaam226 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 4, 2020 12:13 PM in response to BDAqua

I don't think I have a recent time machine backup but I can try the Carbon Copy Cloner, and yes please recommend me one. Here is a screenshot since that might give you more information.

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Answer 11

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

May 3, 2020 8:45 AM in response to ilhaam226

I've seen it take 2 months to finish & you can't turn it off until it finishes...

Filevault state, open Terminal & paste these in…

fdesetup status

diskutil cs list | grep 'Conversion Progress'

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Filevault wont switch off?

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