filevault 2 "Unable to create boot loader partition due to the specifics of your partition map layout."

I tried to encrypt my 3TB WD External drive again today after installing 10.7.1 -- still no go. I did receive word back from AppleCare that they were able to reproduce the issue yet no promise that it would be fixed. I also opened Apple Bug Reporter #9871409 to address the issue. I opened it as a "security" bug, but Apple re-classified it as an "Enhancement Request." I'd encourage everyone that has the problem to both call into AppleCare and open a bug report on the issue. Hopefully that way Apple will see that there are numerous people affected by the bug and that we want a proper resolution.

Same issue here with a 3TB WD Essential and OS X 10.7.1. It's a big bummer as I originally wanted to use TrueCrypt, but it seems to have the same 512 byte block limitation in Mac OS X. Windows users seem to be able to encrypt and mount those drives with TC...

Apple can't postpone fixing this forever, because as drive capacity gets bigger, 512 byte drives will die out sooner or later. So better do it now.

Anyone tested this against a 10.7.2 build?

Drive: LaCie, External USB, 250GB,

Total Size: 249.7 GB (249715376128 Bytes) (exactly 487725344 512-Byte-Blocks)

Device Block Size: 512 Bytes

Log of "diskutil cs convert /Volumes/LaCie":

Started CoreStorage operation on disk2s2 LaCie

Resizing disk to fit Core Storage headers

Creating Core Storage Logical Volume Group

Unable to create Core Storage Logical Volume Group

A problem occurred; undoing all changes

Reclaiming space formerly used by Core Storage metadata

Error: -69886: Invalid request

Count me in as another victim. even with the most recent software update, the issue is still not resolved. Sometimes i cant even get passed the setup password screen.

I also have this problem. Here are the details:

dyn:~ kalyniuk$ diskutil info /Volumes/"G-Drive slim"

Device Identifier: disk2s2

Device Node: /dev/disk2s2

Part of Whole: disk2

Device / Media Name: G-DRIVE slim

Volume Name: G-DRIVE slim

Escaped with Unicode: G-DRIVE%FF%FE%20%00slim

Mounted: Yes

Mount Point: /Volumes/G-DRIVE slim

Escaped with Unicode: /Volumes/G-DRIVE%FF%FE%20%00slim

File System Personality: Journaled HFS+

Type (Bundle): hfs

Name (User Visible): Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Journal: Journal size 40960 KB at offset 0xe8e000

Owners: Enabled

Partition Type: Apple_HFS

OS Can Be Installed: Yes

Media Type: Generic

Protocol: USB

SMART Status: Not Supported

Volume UUID: E7E9E484-595D-30B1-8871-05853192024B

Total Size: 499.8 GB (499763859456 Bytes) (exactly 976101288 512-Byte-Blocks)

Volume Free Space: 447.2 GB (447194529792 Bytes) (exactly 873426816 512-Byte-Blocks)

Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes

Read-Only Media: No

Read-Only Volume: No

Ejectable: Yes

Whole: No

Internal: No

Anyone have any solutions or workarounds? Will Apple provide a fix or should I return the drive?

Thanks

Any ideas when Apple will fix this issue? The problem what I see is, that even if I decide to buy a new external disk (what I did when I bought my brand new MBA) no one guarantees that there is a 512 kB block size disk in it. Correct?

Getting scared after 4 weeks without backup and I see no sense in backing up an encrypted notebook without encryption on the backup disk.

Add me to the list. Received this error while trying to encrypt my Seagate GoFlex Desk 3TB. 😟

The root of the problem might be the USB drivers provided by Apple, and the specific USB chip set used by the hard disk. The fact that also certain hard disks with 512 kB block size do not work with filevault 2 encryption supports this.

In another thread it was discussed that a certain problem with SATA hard disks (unrelated to the filevault 2 problem discussed in the present thread) was only present when they connected to a Mac through an USB interface, while they worked flawless via a Firewire interface.

Good catch, maybe there are two issues. So far it looks as if Core Storage can't handle non-512b sectors. And additionally there might be a USB issue.

So far there's two reports of users with a USB drive with 512b sectors, who do indeed have the problem (maiksd and Enemene)

There's also at least one user (rharder) with a FireWire 800 drive, which emulates 4k sectors, who does have the problem.

Does anyone have an internal drive with non-512b sector size to test?

Add me to the list. Western Digital external 3TB USB drive.

Another one bites the dust.

Disk encryption failed

Unable to create a new Core storage Logical volume group

USB external disk 80 Gb

Seagate ST380021 (it was a PowerMac G5 internal disk)

Hmm, this drive has 512b sectors. What Device Block Size does it show when you run

diskutil info /Volumes/YourExternalDiskName

in Terminal?

Can't think of a reason why a USB enclosure should "translate" the sector size for a disk smaller than 2 TB, but might still be worth checking.

I got this error when trying to enable Time Machine encryption on my 3TB Seagate GoFlex drive using a FireWire 800 interface:

File System Personality: Journaled HFS+

Type (Bundle): hfs

Name (User Visible): Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Journal: Journal size 229376 KB at offset 0x8246f000

Owners: Enabled

Partition Type: Apple_HFS

OS Can Be Installed: Yes

Media Type: Generic

Protocol: FireWire

SMART Status: Not Supported

Total Size: 3.0 TB (3000248999936 Bytes) (exactly 5859861328 512-Byte-Blocks)

Volume Free Space: 967.4 GB (967397494784 Bytes) (exactly 1889448232 512-Byte-Blocks)

Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes

Me too, Western digital 3TB My book essential. only has usb 2/3 interface.