I have a 27" late 2009 iMac on High Sierra. It has a spinning 1TB HDD, 355GB used and 658GB available. There have been a rash of burglaries around here and I wanted to secure my computer data in case anything happens. So I thought "FileVault!"... what a nightmare this turned into! I have never used FileVault before - and it's a living nightmare!
I don't understand what happened and it's not working anywhere near what I imagined. First, I turned it on and it DID NOT ASK ME to set any special password for the filevault, however, it did provide a recovery password, then it just started encrypting my Macintosh HD... it took 2.5 DAYS!!!! This on an 2.8GHz i7. Finally, today it was done. OK. I restart the computer - when it comes back I'm faced with a screen that asks for my password, while allowing me to pick "administrator" or "guest". Here is where the fun starts - I have an apple bluetooth keyboard that came with this computer - NONE OF MY TYPING REGISTERS! I thought I was going to pass out!
Fortunately, it gave me the option of going into "recovery mode" wherein I turned off the computer and turned it back on in recovery mode where it asked for the recovery password, which I supplied. It also informed me that if I was unable to type in the password previously, it means that my keyboard might not be compatible with FileVault and advised me to turn off FileVault! WTF?? This is an official Apple bluetooth keyboard that came with this computer!
So after the recovery password worked, another screen came up with my admin icon and I had to put in my admin password, which I did. Then the computer opened up and I got to my desktop.
Then I click on the "Security & Privacy" tab in Systems Preferences and I see two things - first it says that FileVault is turned ON on my Macintosh HD and also it is now DECRYPTING the data - with time estimated at more than a day... if it takes as long to decrypt as it took to encrypt, that's 2.5 days!
This is unbelievable. What a cluster****! Is FileVault the worst piece of software Apple has ever done? It's unusable! Should I bother? Should I try a different keyboard? Should I not bother with FileVault? I think I'm now inclined to disable FileVault and never touch that POS again - what was Apple thinking??!!
My final question is - how do I secure my data now? Is the screen asking for admin password good enough? Or is the admin password screen not enough to thwart a determined person who wants access to my data?
Thank you in advance - and let me yet again curse the unbelievably bad FileVault... APPLE WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU??
I don't understand what happened and it's not working anywhere near what I imagined. First, I turned it on and it DID NOT ASK ME to set any special password for the filevault, however, it did provide a recovery password, then it just started encrypting my Macintosh HD... it took 2.5 DAYS!!!! This on an 2.8GHz i7. Finally, today it was done. OK. I restart the computer - when it comes back I'm faced with a screen that asks for my password, while allowing me to pick "administrator" or "guest". Here is where the fun starts - I have an apple bluetooth keyboard that came with this computer - NONE OF MY TYPING REGISTERS! I thought I was going to pass out!
Fortunately, it gave me the option of going into "recovery mode" wherein I turned off the computer and turned it back on in recovery mode where it asked for the recovery password, which I supplied. It also informed me that if I was unable to type in the password previously, it means that my keyboard might not be compatible with FileVault and advised me to turn off FileVault! WTF?? This is an official Apple bluetooth keyboard that came with this computer!
So after the recovery password worked, another screen came up with my admin icon and I had to put in my admin password, which I did. Then the computer opened up and I got to my desktop.
Then I click on the "Security & Privacy" tab in Systems Preferences and I see two things - first it says that FileVault is turned ON on my Macintosh HD and also it is now DECRYPTING the data - with time estimated at more than a day... if it takes as long to decrypt as it took to encrypt, that's 2.5 days!
This is unbelievable. What a cluster****! Is FileVault the worst piece of software Apple has ever done? It's unusable! Should I bother? Should I try a different keyboard? Should I not bother with FileVault? I think I'm now inclined to disable FileVault and never touch that POS again - what was Apple thinking??!!
My final question is - how do I secure my data now? Is the screen asking for admin password good enough? Or is the admin password screen not enough to thwart a determined person who wants access to my data?
Thank you in advance - and let me yet again curse the unbelievably bad FileVault... APPLE WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU??
