Comments on: Undoing FileVault

By: Shari

Shari — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 04:02:04 +0000

I am having the same problem but this is complicated. Someone suggested I reformat the hard drive and then transfer everything back from my external hard drive back up. Is this an easier way to go, especially for someone not very techie? Thanks.

Shari

By: Red from Baton Rouge

Red from Baton Rouge — Tue, 15 May 2007 19:53:30 +0000

Damon, I have the same problem and i am trying your cure. I used UNIX back in the 80’s, so I’m familiar with the terminal commands. However, I’m sad to say I don’t know how to do step 3– “Create a new encrypted sparseimage of larger size than the current one and give it the same password”

I created newuser account with admin privileges and started FileVault. How do I ensure it is a larger size?

Thanks!

By: Damon

Damon — Wed, 02 May 2007 16:26:49 +0000

No worries, Dan - I’m happy to answer your questions. All you need to do is give the new user access to your old users directory. You will need to temporarily give access to the old file to your new user.
I forget the details at the moment, but you will need to do something like the following:
sudo chown newuser /Users/olduser_image

and then once you have copied the data, change the permissions back:

sudo chown olduser /Users/olduser_image

By: Dan Akst

Dan Akst — Wed, 02 May 2007 02:12:41 +0000

I’m so glad you posted this. I’m having the exact same problem. Unfortunately I’m relatively new to Mac (I thought my suffering was over when I left WinXP). Unfortunately I’ve been unable to folo these directions. I log in as a new user (w/admin privileges) and set up a new sparseimage. But then I can’t access the folder that contains the offending FileVault from this identity; I’m told I don’t have privileges for this. I’m so sorry to punish your good deed here with further questions, but any guidance would be *hugely* appreciated. Nothing from the apple forums, sigh. Many thanks for any help!