File vault. Aargh!

[johnhaak]

So I just got a macbook pro and when setting it up turned file vault on (who knew it would be such a pain?). I then transferred music from one external hard drive to the MBP to a new external hard drive. The problem is that even after deleting the files from my MBP, emptying my trash and restarting the computer finder says I have only about 1 gb of available space. I used Disk Inventory to find out that my 'sparse image' is gigantic. After looking around a bit I came to the (hopefully correct) conclusion that this is being problematic because of filevault. So I decided to go turn off filevault. Now I encounter the problem off not enough space (says I need 75gb of free space) to turn off file vault. What do i do? I'm frustrated and angry. This is supposed to be how i feel when using a PC not my shiny new mac!

Thanks everyone!

John

 

[angelwatt]

I'd ensure that you really moved the files off and not just copied them, and that your trash is really emptied. The extra space should be reclaimed at log off. You can also try using Disk Utility to erase free space to see if that makes a difference. I've used FileVault since Tiger and only ever had one small issue that didn't get in my way.

 

[maflynn]

If you had done a search/asked here about file vault you would have found out that its not a "feature" to be played with because of the risk of corruption (any of the sparse images flips a bit/gets corrupted you lose your home directory and all if its data) and inability to uninstall it.

the only option I've seen is that you just need to kill your account and start over, but if that's the path you wish to take, make sure you have a good backup of your data (preferably unencrypted).

While apple makes some great products, awesome computers, they've been known to lay some eggs and file vault certainly falls into that category.

 

[angelwatt]

If you had done a search/asked here about file vault you would have found out that its not a "feature" to be played with because of the risk of corruption (any of the sparse images flips a bit/gets corrupted you lose your home directory and all if its data) and inability to uninstall it.

That's simply untrue. Back in Tiger it was a single image, but from Leopard onward it uses a sparse image, which keeps it from becoming corrupted if some small part goes bad. So don't spread such FUD.

 

[maflynn]

So don't spread such FUD.

Sorry but I disagree, and the volume of threads about problems with filevault validate my cautious take on using this tool

 

[angelwatt]

Sorry but I disagree, and the volume of threads about problems with filevault validate my cautious take on using this tool

OK, if there's such high volume, then find me 3 threads from 2009 that deal with FileVault causing corrupted data. That might give your post some credence.