How to enable FileVault in recovery mode?

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Level 1

11 points

How to enable FileVault in recovery mode?

While troubleshooting this issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252130086 I disabled FileVault via the resetpassword command while in recovery mode. Now a user in the other thread suggested to reinstall Big Sur, which sounds promising. However the installer won’t let me proceed, since after selecting my HD it says that the disk is currently being decrypted. I’d be happy to let the decryption process finish, but since I cannot login to any user profile, I don’t see how that’s possible.

So I wanted to enable FileVault again, but in Recovery mode, the fdesetup command is not available.

Any suggestions?

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Dec 6, 2020 6:00 AM

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Answer 1

Cenneth Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 10, 2020 9:56 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks - i tried many different commands but was unable to influence the FileVault encryption status/progress. Meanwhile I gave up trying to fix this. I wiped my HDD and reinstalled Big Sur and restored from TimeMachine backup. Hours of lost work had to be redone, but better than spending even more time on this issue :-)

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,126 points

Dec 6, 2020 6:10 AM in response to Cenneth

The only way I know to stop either the encryption or decryption process is to erase the disk.

You might try diskutil command in Terminal while in Recovery.

man diskutil

will display the manual page for diskutil. There is an APFS decryptVolume verb which may work, but I don't know the correct usage for it.

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How to enable FileVault in recovery mode?

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