Help! Big problems (filevault)

Jump to First Reply
greggwsmithgreggwsmith
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Ok, this is weird. I have been having real problems with Panther 10.3.2. Well today I was restarting my machine (15inch Al PB) and it asked if I wanted filevault to free up space. I clicked yes and it just hung up. I manually restarted and now almost everything is gone!! My dock is back to factory specs, my favorites are gone in Safari, and a few programs have disapeared as well. Help! I have to say that Microsux's feature in XP to restore is awsome and I wish I could do that with this situation on my mac!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Moving to the Genius Bar, editing title to something reasonable.



    The problem is that you didn't let the first process finish. The system was moving around all your files to free up space and you killed it while it was just part-way done. Sometimes this could take a very long time if you haven't rebooted/looged out and the computer has several gigabytes to process.



    I think you're just out of luck now. \



    (Though, there may be a slim chance that you can find the disk image that filevault was using... I can't reacll the exact path off the top of my head.)



    Lesson learned: don't kill the computer unless you *know* that it's safe to do so.



    That said, it should be noted that FileVault is not intended for everybody. It is only meant for people who travel enough and/or have sensitive enough information that they absolutely need their data to be completely secured. In the past, if your hardware was physically in the possession of someone else, that person could fairly easily get your data off by simply hooking up a different boot drive. FileVault prevents this from happening, but it comes at the above penalty as well as a slight performance hit.



    If keeping your files secure is more important than overall system performance and the chance that you may actually lose those files, then FileVault is for you. If not, then you should switch back to a regular user account.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 2 of 5
    greggwsmithgreggwsmith Posts: 523member
    Thanks Brad! Yeah I work for a large corporation and most of the work I do is quite sensitive. The only way I can use the Mac is with Filevault in place. Otherwise I would have to go back the the PC.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 3 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    I understand.



    I'm away from my Mac right now, but when I get home later this evening, I'll look around for where FileVault stores its disk images. Hopefully (though, I rather doubt it) your old home image may still be there.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 4 of 5
    greggwsmithgreggwsmith Posts: 523member
    I have one more question. It now says that it cannot open iTunes because the ITunes library does not appear to be a valid one. Any idea how to fix this?
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 5 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    I'm sorry I didn't get back yesterday.



    My guess is that the iTunes library was probably in the middle of processing from the previous filevault disk image when it was killed. Thus, the file is incomplete or corrupt.



    The fix?



    Remove the iTunes library files:



    ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes 4 Music Library



    and



    ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml



    You'll have to re-add your files to iTunes and recreate your playlists.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
Sign In or Register to comment.