Filevault APFS Mojave help!

[djsmith83]

Hi guys,


I have a Macbook Pro running Mojave developer beta (Mac HD is therefore APFS) and an old bootable USB external drive of an old work machine running Mac OS Sierra (so is therefore formatted as Mac OS Extended) that is filevault encrypted and is on it's last legs. I've cloned this drive to a new external drive and it's working nicely again.


However, due to sensitive company data I want to encrypt the NEW bootable drive with filevault, but ctrl clicking on the drive and choosing encrypt seems to change the drive format to APFS - I tested on another drive, and haven't done so on the new cloned drive yet.


My question is - as the new bootable drive is Mac OS Extended, can I encrypt using Filevault via Mojave, or will that screw the drive formatting up and change to APFS, which will result in not being able to boot from it? If so, is there a way of encrypting in Mac OS Extended in Mojave? I guess my only other choice is too boot from the new drive and turn on filevault from there?


Thanks in advance.

 

[crjackson2134]

Hi guys,


I have a Macbook Pro running Mojave developer beta (Mac HD is therefore APFS) and an old bootable USB external drive of an old work machine running Mac OS Sierra (so is therefore formatted as Mac OS Extended) that is filevault encrypted and is on it's last legs. I've cloned this drive to a new external drive and it's working nicely again.


However, due to sensitive company data I want to encrypt the NEW bootable drive with filevault, but ctrl clicking on the drive and choosing encrypt seems to change the drive format to APFS - I tested on another drive, and haven't done so on the new cloned drive yet.


My question is - as the new bootable drive is Mac OS Extended, can I encrypt using Filevault via Mojave, or will that screw the drive formatting up and change to APFS, which will result in not being able to boot from it? If so, is there a way of encrypting in Mac OS Extended in Mojave? I guess my only other choice is too boot from the new drive and turn on filevault from there?


Thanks in advance.

For sensitive company data, I would avoid Mojave at the moment.

 

[matreya]

I guess my only other choice is to boot from the new drive and turn on filevault from there?

This.

 

[treekram]

You may (haven't tried it with Mojave) be able to encrypt retaining Mac OS Extended using the command line (Terminal app).

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/encrypting-10-7-non-boot-volumes-without-erasing-them/

The advantage is that you can use your computer as you would normally instead of relying on a HDD-booted OS.

 

[crjackson2134]

Well, the problem at the moment is also that Mojave won't get any updates if installed on an HFS+ drive.

 

[tehabe]

Don't you turn on File Vault in the Security preferences like you did in High Sierra?