External drive encryption not completed and won't mount

[spomeniks]

Hi everyone. I have a 4tb external drive that I've had for a while and have about half filled up. 24 hrs before a recent trip, I decided to encrypt the drive (some great thinking here). I'd read some forum posts that said it should take a few hours, and that if you eject the drive while it's going then it'll just not save any of the encryption work. It was still going when I needed to leave for this two week trip and I'd started it through Finder - so I had no way to check on the encryption progress. Yes, I made a lot of poor choices with this whole thing.

The drive now won't mount and Disk Utility doesn't seem to be able to help much. I had a lot of important things on that drive, and I'll reformat it if I have to - but wanted to get a second opinion before doing that as I'm new to the screwing up encryption game.

 

[junkw]

try with "diskutil apfs" command in Terminal:

diskutil apfs
Usage:  diskutil [quiet] ap[fs] <verb> <options>
        where <verb> is as follows:

     list                (Show status of all current APFS Containers)
     listUsers           (List cryptographic users/keys of an APFS Volume)
     listSnapshots       (List APFS Snapshots in a mounted APFS Volume)
     listVolumeGroups    (List all current APFS Volume Group relationships)
     convert             (Nondestructively convert from HFS to APFS)
     create              (Create a new APFS Container with one APFS Volume)
     createContainer     (Create a new empty APFS Container)
     deleteContainer     (Delete an APFS Container and reformat disks to HFS)
     resizeContainer     (Resize an APFS Container and its disk space usage)
     addVolume           (Export a new APFS Volume from an APFS Container)
     deleteVolume        (Remove an APFS Volume from its APFS Container)
     eraseVolume         (Erase contents of, but keep, an APFS Volume)
     changeVolumeRole    (Change the Role metadata flags of an APFS Volume)
     unlockVolume        (Unlock an encrypted APFS Volume which is locked)
     lockVolume          (Lock an encrypted APFS Volume (diskutil unmount))
     changePassphrase    (Change the passphrase of a cryptographic user)
     setPassphraseHint   (Set or clear passphrase hint of a cryptographic user)
     encryptVolume       (Enable FileVault security in background or instantly)
     decryptVolume       (Disable FileVault security in background or instantly)
     deleteSnapshot      (Remove an APFS Snapshot from an APFS Volume)
     defragment          (Arm or check status or begin APFS defragmentation)
     updatePreboot       (Update a macOS Volume's related APFS Preboot Volume)
     syncPatchUsers      (Copy Volume Group crypto users System-to-Data role)

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in your case i'd try to get rid of fielvault first with "diskutil apfs decryptVolume disk4s1"

 

[spomeniks]

in your case i'd try to get rid of fielvault first with "diskutil apfs decryptVolume disk4s1"

Thanks for your suggestion! I have attached the result

 

[junkw]

what happens with "diskutil apfs listcryptousers" ?
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watch this :

try on your disk4s1 with those commands ^^

 

[spomeniks]

Thank you for sharing that. I've shown another screenshot that shows the odd result, but I also noticed, which was interesting, the Encryption Progress line and that it says Paused. Not sure how to just continue it (and then decrypt later?), because I had done it in Finder and not in Terminal

 

[junkw]

to unpause you have to unlock it

 

[Diogenes Pontifex]

I've had the same problem after encryption was interrupted on an external APFS data disk (not a boot disk):

• diskutil apfs list shows "Encryption Progress: 43.0% (Paused) (Unlocked)".
• fsck_apfs shows that the volume "appears to be OK".
• diskutil mount results in "Volume on disk8s1 failed to mount".

In short: Encryption is paused, and it's not clear how to cancel or restart it. Rebooting doesn't help. Moving the disk to another Mac doesn't help either. The disk is unlocked and fsck_apfs shows no errors, but the volume can't be mounted. I'm pretty well stumped -- thanks in advance for any suggestions!