File Vault Error

Question

Level 1

6 points

File Vault Error

Hi,

Once again, I'm going to attempt to WIN THE FILE VAULT BATTLE. Throughout the two years I've had File Vault enabled, I have attempted to Turn Off! Every attempt has been unsuccessful and every-time I have given up.

But those times I could never manage to rid enough files, etc to regain disk space on my mac. But, this time I have managed due to massive deleting of files, images, etc. And backing up and moving some programs to my Lacie external drive.

Anyway, here is my current disk space availability on my Mac HD:
Capacity: 232.57 GB
Available: 211.56 GB
Used: 21 GB on disk

My Home Folder which is what the File Vault encrypts has the following:
4.6 GB

Thought this would be enough to turn off File Vault. Apparently not! I no longer have iphoto, large images, etc. My home folder is minimal except iweb and a few low disk things. Really, 4.6 GB seems small in the home folder.

I do notice one promising attribute in this battle. First time ever, managed to get the turning off process (decrypting) started when it asked for my password. Password worked and albeit previous attempts did not receive the ever persistent error message: The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of the items. Or, it would say not enough space.

Now this time, upon what I thought was going to begin the process, instead of errors mentioned above, I receive the following: An error occurred during encryption (An error occurred during copying). File Vault will be turned on for this home folder and the home folder will still be encrypted.

Hmmm, what is going on? What is this mysterious error? Do I still need to deal with disk space?

Help most appreciative.

P.S. This File Vault battle is ridiculous!!! If I can ever get it turned off, I will never ever use it again. Take note anyone considering.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Aug 30, 2010 9:59 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

238,997 points

Aug 30, 2010 10:37 AM in response to Junieart

Whew, Very Important, how much Free Space is on your Hard Drive first of all? Click on the Macintosh HD on the Desktop, then do a Get Info on it.

How much free space is on the HD, where has all the space gone?

OmniDiskSweeper is likely the easiest/best, and is now free...

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/download/

Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image ...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2631?viewlocale=en_US

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Answer 2

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Aug 30, 2010 11:20 AM in response to Junieart

Seems like you are getting a generic error message.

Might be disk corruptions. or a permissions problem. Doesn't make sense since you can log on. Run disk utility.

---------------

Create a new account and switch to that account.

------

login to your current account.

copy your home folder to your external hd. This avoids permissions problems.

login to your new account.

copy the external hd data to your new account. You may get some complaints when trying this.

Robert

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Answer 3

Junieart Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 30, 2010 11:58 AM in response to rccharles

Hi,

BD: Thanks, but I do know how much disk space available. So, omnidisk most likely not answer.

Robert: Thanks. But confused. Why would I avoid disk utility permissions? Think maybe I will attempt specific directions according to apple's article - How to verify or repair a home directory image directions instead. Of course, there will probably be issues with this to.

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Answer 4

Junieart Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 30, 2010 7:29 PM in response to Junieart

Back again. Hopeful I haven't been dropped-kicked regarding this issue.

Well, discovered something interesting and very scary. After going through the first few steps according to apple article "verify or repair home directory" such as creating a different users account>get info from finder's file menu>setting ownership & permissions... I now notice that my home directory encrypted by file fault has a broken symbol (prohibitory). Therefore, I can't do anything with it to repair in disk utility because permission not granted in get info drop-down menu. Also, no sense trying to back up using super duper or mac backup. I mean if the directory is broken, it simply can't back up properly. Right?

So what is my best alternative in order to prevent data loss? Everything else on my mac works perfectly except this issue.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

238,997 points

Aug 30, 2010 7:34 PM in response to Junieart

In the Get Info Window, did you unlock the lock & change Permissions to you Read & Write?

# You'll see folder icons for each user account. Select the one that is FileVault-protected (you won't be able to open the folder yet), then choose Get Info from the Finder's File menu.
# Expand the "Ownership & Permissions" area at the bottom of the Get Info window by clicking the disclosure triangle. You should see "Owner:" set to the shortname of the protected account.
# Click the small lock icon that's right of the "Owner" field.
# Enter your administrator name and password.
# Change the Owner pop-up menu to your current account's short name. The Access menu (under Owner) should change to "Read & Write"; if not, change that menu manually.
# Close the Get Info menu.

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Answer 6

Junieart Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 30, 2010 10:59 PM in response to BDAqua

Yes. I did all as stated. Still could not open my folder. It has the prohibitory symbol on it and simply won't allow access. Also noticed all my other users folders (2) have the same symbols.

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

238,997 points

Aug 30, 2010 11:36 PM in response to Junieart

You must repair the HD, if Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

BTW, you might enjoy these DiskWarrior review/recommendations...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9645801&#9645801

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10541019#10541019

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11918925&#11918925But others that may work…

Drive Genius 2…

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php

TechTool Pro 4…

http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

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Answer 8

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Aug 31, 2010 9:55 AM in response to Junieart

You need to follow this procedure to recovering a filevault id.

I see that BD listed the procedure above. I'd have to guess that you did not follow the procedure exactly. It's complicated. Print out the procedure.

Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image ...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2631?viewlocale=en_US

*How filevault saves your home directory*

When you are not logged in, the sparse image is not hidden. It is:
/Users/yourshortusername/yourshortusername.sparseimage

In the finder, you click on Go
then click on Go to folder.
then type in the path. example
/Users

Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

mac $ ls -l /Users total 0 drwxrwx--- 3 root admin 102 May 10 2004 Deleted Users/ drwxr-xr-x 11 filevaul a 374 Aug 10 2008 a (Deleted)/ drwxr-xr-x 12 filev filev 408 Jun 21 2009 filev/ dr-x------ 3 filevaul filevaul 102 Jan 23 15:55 filevault/ drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jul 22 2008 ftp/ ... clipped ... ### User filevault is not logged in Your administration password when typed will not appear. mac $ sudo ls -la /Users/filevault/ Password: total 98560 dr-x------ 3 filevaul filevaul 102 Jan 23 15:55 . drwxrwxr-t 23 root admin 782 Jan 23 16:13 .. -rw------- 1 filevaul filevaul 50458624 Jan 23 16:13 filevault.sparseimage mac $ ### User filevault has logged in Mac OS moves the sparseimage to a hidden file in the users directory. sudo ls -la /Userstotal 32
drwxrwxr-t 24 root admin 816 Jan 25 13:59 ./
drwxrwxr-t 50 root admin 1802 Dec 31 1969 ../
-rwxrwxr-x 1 mac admin 12292 Jan 23 20:13 .DS_Store*
dr-x------ 3 filevaul filevaul 102 Jan 23 15:55 .filevault/
dr-x------ 3 fv fv 102 Nov 15 20:01 .fv/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Mar 20 2005 .localized
... clipped ...
mac #sudo cd .filevault
pwd
/Users/.filevault
mac #sudo ls -la
total 100608
dr-x------ 3 filevaul filevaul 102 Aug 31 12:41 ./
drwxrwxr-t 25 root admin 850 Aug 31 12:41 ../
-rw------- 1 filevaul filevaul 51507200 Aug 31 12:43 filevault.sparseimage
mac #

mac $ sudo ls -la /Users/filevault/
total 24
drwx------ 15 filevaul filevaul 612 Jan 23 16:03 .
drwxrwxr-t 24 root admin 816 Jan 23 16:03 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 filevaul filevaul 3 Jan 23 15:50 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rw-r--r-- 1 filevaul filevaul 6148 Jan 23 15:54 .DS_Store
drw------- 7 root filevaul 238 Jan 23 16:03 .Spotlight-V100
drwx------ 2 filevaul filevaul 68 Jan 23 16:03 .Trash
d-wx-wx-wt 2 root admin 68 Jan 23 15:55 .Trashes
drwx------ 5 filevaul filevaul 170 Jan 23 15:55 Desktop
drwx------ 3 filevaul filevaul 102 Jan 23 15:50 Documents
drwx------ 20 filevaul filevaul 680 Jan 23 15:54 Library
drwx------ 3 filevaul filevaul 102 Jan 23 15:50 Movies
drwx------ 3 filevaul filevaul 102 Jan 23 15:50 Music
drwx------ 4 filevaul filevaul 136 Jan 23 15:50 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 4 filevaul filevaul 136 Jan 23 15:50 Public
drwxr-xr-x 5 filevaul filevaul 170 Jan 23 15:50 Sites
mac $

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Answer 9

Junieart Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 31, 2010 10:06 AM in response to rccharles

BD and RC,

Thank you both for your help. I'm trying to work out both your suggestions. First, I checked out the Disk Warrior website. Discovered it will cost $100 to order the DVD. Alas, ordering DiskWarrior will have to be delayed. Unfortunately when making room for more disk space, I had deleted the iDVD folder which will be needed to run DiskWarrior. Stupid me! Thought iDVD wasn't necessary because I don't make movies, etc. Anyway, will have to go through the procedure of running my iLife software and just install iDVD. I don't want to reinstall garageband so hopeful the reinstall will allow just installing the iDVD. I noticed in my software package it says I can do a customize installation.

Meanwhile, will attempt another Get Info and this time do /Users/filevault that RC suggests.

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Answer 10

BDAqua

Level 10

238,997 points

Aug 31, 2010 10:22 AM in response to Junieart

Alas, ordering DiskWarrior will have to be delayed. Unfortunately when making room for more disk space, I had deleted the iDVD folder which will be needed to run DiskWarrior. Stupid me! Thought iDVD wasn't necessary because I don't make movies, etc.

Nope, iDVD is not needed to run DiskWarrior at all. You just need to boot up holding down the c key to boot from a CD or DVD.

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Answer 11

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Aug 31, 2010 10:26 AM in response to Junieart

Meanwhile, will attempt another Get Info and this time do /Users/Meanwhile, will attempt another Get Info and this time do /Users/filevault that RC suggests. that RC suggests.

fyi:
You need to use whatever short user name you have (not filevault).

You need to start with /Users
You then need to change permission on /Users/youshortid

I'm not convinced you have disk corruption with your normal files. You may have corruption with your filevault id.

You can run disk utility & verify your drive. Try this.

Robert

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Answer 12

Junieart Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 31, 2010 10:34 AM in response to rccharles

Oops! My fault BD and RC for not reading thoroughly your suggestions.

I'll do. Thanks.

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Answer 13

Junieart Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 31, 2010 12:25 PM in response to rccharles

Hi,
I finally found my sparseimage for the file vault directory! Now while in Get info I am noticing first and foremost the following:

Name & Extension: here is shows my sparseimage file. Good.
Open With: here it shows a drop down menu giving me two choices - DiskImage Mounter or Disk Utility.

Which one do I choose? Most likely the Disk Utility right?

Also, when I expand the Ownership & Permissions: there is no access available including when I expand the Details. The only area with my short file name is Owner and Group. The rest is grayed out areas.

Help please! I am writing this using a quirky pc computer because I didn't want to close my users account on my mac. So I might lose you while on this junk PC. Anyway, if it does freeze up I will close out and then close my users account on mac. Start the process on my mac all over again. Let me know soon if possible what to do next. Thanks!

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Answer 14

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Aug 31, 2010 1:04 PM in response to Junieart

You need to print out the instructions. Check off each step.

Carpenter one said: "measure twice. cut once."
-------------

Did you click on the little lock symbol?

Here is what I have after changing to my mac id.

!http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4075/4945679241_818bb03047.jpg!

double click on the sparse image.
Once the image is mounted, you get into disk utility.

----------
You better go into the terminal & tell finder to show all files.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
# Show hidden files & folders in finder
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE ;killall Finder
# Normal display. Hide hidden files & folders in finder
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE ;killall Finder
mac $

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Answer 15

Junieart Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 31, 2010 1:08 PM in response to rccharles

Hi RC,
thanks for quick response! Yes, I did click on the lock, but nothing changed. So do I open with disk image mounter first which is on the Get Info?

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