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Filevault 2 does not start with encryption

Trying to encrypt my 2011 MacBook Pro SSD with FileVault 2 (Mountain Lion), I get the message: FileVault failed - start up file was not written (FileVault fehlgeschlagen - Startdatei wurde nicht geschrieben)?! - Checking and fixing rights and volume did not help, also not a new installation of Mountain Lion. Always same procedure: After I get the unlock key, I click to new start and after a few seconds the message appears and FileVault 2 ends. - Does someone know, what to do? Thanks for any help!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion, filevault 2

Posted on Aug 13, 2012 6:57 AM

Reply
27 replies

Sep 14, 2012 3:08 AM in response to ajberlin

Are you sure that the problem reappears on a "clean" system after turning file vault off and on? (not that I want you to try this...) Because then it would be a widespread problem and I still do not find too many people complaining about it.


But thanks for reporting your solution! Before I do this though, I'll give 10.8.2 a chance to fix this!

Oct 2, 2012 7:41 AM in response to SwissNineFive

Yep - have the exact same problem. With my last machine and 10.7.x everything worked fine without even thinking about having to wipe the whole disk. This is simply unacceptable. And it's the THIRD heavy bug 10.8 (.2) hits me with ...


# 1 # Parental protection in 10.8 was completely messed up, increasing the time left for the kids plus some login problems plus plus plus - and kids tempt to be quite impatient, when they cannot access their games :-)

# 2 # wakeup-issue plus combined installer for 10.8.2 from 10.8 terminates with an error message

# 3 # filevault doesn't work


That's three completely disfunctional features un 10.8. - im curious, what I'll find next.

Oct 2, 2012 9:09 AM in response to SwissNineFive

I could finally solve the problem for me without wiping the drive. The first problem was that filevault would not start and then the iTunes 10.7 upgrade terminated with an error.


Apparently I had some bad kernel extensions that the app Launch2Net had probably installed when I had used it in 2010. The Launch2Net uninstaller did not remove those extensions. I manually deleted the following extensions from

System/Library/Extensions/

NM_MultiModemDriver.kext

NovatelWirelessUSBCDCECMControl.kext

NovatelWirelessUSBCDCECMData.kext

SierraDIPSupport.kext

SierraFSRSupport.kext

SierraHSRSupport.kext

SierraIPDirect.kext

USBDeviceSwitch.kext


After removing them, the iTunes 10.7 upgrade finished without an error. At this point, I did not activate filevault, because 10.8.2 just came out. I installed the 10.8.2 combo update after booting in safe mode, repaired permissions and reset the PRAM. Now filevault started and completed without a glitch.


Now I can't say whether the Kext removal or the 10.8.2 update (or both) solved the filevault problem, but I suspect the Kext problem to be the culprit.

Oct 2, 2012 9:31 AM in response to PDipp

Hi PDipp - Many many thanks. This solved my issue. I do have launch2net installed. And I had an issue installing the 10.8.2 combo update before - simply resultet in an error ...


I did the following:

# remove the kext files you named plus reboot

# after that i reran the 10.8.2 combo update. This time it would finish wto failure (first good experience)

# after that rebootet again

# and encryption / file vault started wto failure


UNBELIEVABLE :-) Thanks!!!

Dec 21, 2012 12:45 AM in response to SwissNineFive

PDipp pointed me in the right direction. In my case it was a Logitech extension.


Console showed:


12/21/12 12:36:03.913 AM com.apple.kextcache[437]: Prelink failed for com.Logitech.Unifying.HID Driver; aborting prelink.


As soon as I ran "sudo mv LogitechUnifying.kext/ ~" I was able to run Filevault without the "Boot file not written error message".


Bill

Apr 9, 2013 11:32 PM in response to PDipp

I couldn't figure out which extension was the problem, so I solved it by booting the recovery partition, opening the Terminal and typing:

mv /Volumes/DeviceName/System/Library/Extensions/ /Volumes/DeviceName/Users/UserName/Old_Extensions/

cp -rf /System/Library/Extensions/ /Volumes/DeviceName/System/Library/Extensions/


Hope that helps someone who can't find the offending kext.

Filevault 2 does not start with encryption

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