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TMcJilton Author

Level 1

10 points

External HDD Unlock

Hello,

I recently upgraded to Mountain Lion and upon performing a clean install, I decided it was a good idea to start fresh with my external HDD which I use for Time Machine. After backing up my files from the external HDD, I used Disk Utility to perform an erase. However this drive, whcih was "encrypted", had some kind of an error while erasing and now I cannot seem to unlock the drive.

When I connect the drive it does not show up in Finder. When I open Disk Utility, the drive shows up, but will not allow me to make any changes. All of the tabs are gone except for first aid and partition, and it will not allow me to create a partition on the drive. It says "The partition contains a locked disk and can not be resized until it is unlocked".

Help!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jul 31, 2012 1:25 PM

Top-ranking reply

TMcJilton Author

Level 1

10 points

Posted on Aug 2, 2012 12:53 PM

So I have fixed the issue and wanted to share my method, and results. I had access to another machine, and uesd a third party disk utility program to delete the partition and start fresh. If I had known my drive had a USB port as well as the Fire Wire that I use for my Mac, I would have simply done this from the beginning. In any case, it seems that for whatever reason OS X's Disk Utility didnt have the capability of simply deleting the partition.

View in context

44 replies

David Re

Level 1

4 points

Aug 29, 2012 1:26 AM in response to Eddie Yam

Great solution worked for me. I thought I had a trashed disk on my hands. Thanks very much!!🙂

Glue197

Level 1

0 points

Nov 20, 2012 1:54 PM in response to Eddie Yam

Thank you Eddie, you helped me bring my external drive back to life too! 🙂

bwchism

Level 1

0 points

Nov 26, 2012 11:22 AM in response to Eddie Yam

Thanks Eddie, you saved a flash drive for me as well.

Jan 27, 2013 7:32 PM in response to TMcJilton

This thread is a little old but I wanted to give a shout out and thanks to Eddie Yam. Big help! Thanks.

Apr 26, 2013 5:59 PM in response to Eddie Yam

Thanks for your post Eddie Yam! regarding how to delete a "write-protected LVG"

It really helped me out since I had forgotten how to do it, and I was searching the web for the solution.

Cheers!

Nov 15, 2013 3:17 AM in response to Eddie Yam

Thank you Eddie this did exaclty what I wanted, long live this thread!!

labeck

Level 1

19 points

Nov 21, 2013 5:51 AM in response to labeck

Never mind, its all sorted ,I was using the wrong UUID

Deniro68

Level 1

4 points

Dec 21, 2013 5:36 PM in response to Eddie Yam

How do I find the UUID when I am on the recover window. UUID dont show in the Terminal window from the Recovery Mode

Tubby007

Level 1

0 points

May 20, 2014 9:23 AM in response to Tubby007

Never mind. Fixed it! Phew!

Jun 19, 2014 3:10 PM in response to Eddie Yam

Thank you Eddie! This has saved the internal drive on an iMac at work. Been messing with it all day and happened to find this.

alanmgao

Level 1

0 points

Jul 26, 2014 9:44 PM in response to Ben Rigsby

Hi Ben, were you able to recover your file on the HD as well?

Jul 26, 2014 9:49 PM in response to alanmgao

I was dealing with an internal Apple Fusion Drive. I was able to restore the drive to a functioning state but all content was lost.

ppcc111

Level 1

0 points

Dec 19, 2014 6:21 AM in response to Eddie Yam

Hi, will this method delete all contents on your external hard drive? If so, is there a method that will allow you to unlock the disk without deleting the contents? Thanks

Jan 26, 2016 11:29 AM in response to Eddie Yam

I had same issue. This was THE perfect solution. Thank you.

External HDD Unlock