recovering files from filevault

If you've used FileVault with Time Machine, you won't be able to use the Time Machine interface to restore files. Assuming that you've used Time Machine, your computer should still be able to mount the external drive.

Double-click on the drive and there should be a file called username.sparebundle or something close to that (can't really remember). If you double-click on that file, you should see a bunch of folders with dates. Go into one of those folders (your choice) and you should be able to restore from there. It might be a lot of work in comparison to the actual Time Machine application but because of FileVault, it's your only option.

Hope that helps, good luck!

 

When I tried that with FV on 10.5.x that didn't work for me. I couldn't see my home directory at all.

Following a restore, I also couldn't logon to get to my data.

Morale of the story, FV might encrypt your data, but screws you over after doing a restore.

I was only able to restore my data that wasn't encrypted i.e. prior to enabling FV

 

I don't use Time Machine as I dislike the interface and control. So, I'm not sure how it stores FileVault directories. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to do my backups and can access my FileVaulted files with just as much ease and non-FileVaulted users. It's all in how you set it up.

I did find this page that describes restoring while using FileVault.

FileVault + Time Machine isn't a good mix unfortunately since Apple provides both. Most people don't really need the security of FileVault so you should also consider just using an encrypted disk image. For my work I have to use FileVault as a minimum, but it's rare for others to need it. My coworkers and I have never had any issues with FileVault though. Problems with it are far fewer since Leopard came out.

 

Yeah, if that doesn't work my next suggestion would to restore it through the OS X installer.