Jan 24, 2018 The FileVault feature allows you to encrypt your Mac’s entire hard disk. When you enable FileVault, your files are stored on your hard drive in an encrypted, seemingly scrambled format. Someone who gains access to your Mac, removes your hard drive, and attempts to view your files won’t be able to see anything without your encryption key. DiskCryptor also supports encrypting several volumes at once, can pause encryption so you can reboot or remove a hard drive during the process, works with a RAID setup, and can encrypt ISO images to produce encrypted CDs/DVDs.
It’s a fact of life that computers slow down. Sometimes it’sdue to wear and tear but it can also be something as simple as your hard-drivefilling up with files which are no longer needed. Or essential operating systemfiles being accidentally deleted.
When this happens, it’s time to consider reinstalling theoperating system. It is a monumental pain in the neck as it is not a shortprocess, but in the case of MacOS it is an easy process. You need an Internetconnection though so don’t think about doing this on the bus or anything.
This is something I have been meaning to do for a while butProcrastination is my friend. But today, for the purposes of this article, Ihave decided to get it done.
Step One –Backup All Essential Files
This is always the first step before reinstalling anoperating system. So delete all unneeded files then backup the rest either oncloud storage, a USB stick, or a removable hard-drive.
Remember to also backup your iTunes library, your iMoviedatabase, and your Photos database. These can be dragged onto portable storageand then dragged back onto the computer again later when this process is over.
If you use Time Machine, then this backup process is veryeasy.
Best Encrypted Hard Drive
Step Two – TurnOff FileVault
Having FileVault on stops you from reformatting andreinstalling the hard-drive. So go into SystemPreferences–>Security & Privacy and turn it off. This can take upto 30 minutes so be patient. Go make a coffee or something.
Step Three –Have You Encrypted The Start-Up Disk?
For reasons of security, you should have encrypted yourstartup disk from the very beginning. The slight downside to this is that ifyou forget the encryption password, you can never unlock it ever again and cannever reinstall MacOS.
Trust me, I am speaking from very bitter past experiencehere.
Assuming you know your password, restart the computer and atthe same time, hold down the CMD + R keys. This will then show you the padlockscreen above (which I had to photograph since I can’t do screenshots at thisstage).
Enter your password and the screen will then change to showyou this. Again, I had to take a photo with my iPhone so apologies for thenot-so-perfect quality.
If you don’t know your password then you are seriously out ofluck as not even Apple will unlock it for you.
Step Four –Erase The Contents Of The Hard Drive
As you can see from the menu above, there is an option called“Disk Utility”. Choose that and then select the disk which the operating systemis installed on. In my case, there is only one disk but if you aredual-booting, you will have more than one.
Now click “Erase” and a small box will pop up asking you forthe desired name of the newly formatted drive as well as the file format type(APFS). I would recommend leaving them as they are.
Erasing takes literally seconds (in my experience anyway).When it is done, the “Used” part of the disk should be miniscule (in my case,20KB). At this point, everything on your computer is gone.
Close the Disk Utility window and you’ll be bounced back tothe Utilities screen.
Step Five –Choose Your Preferred Reinstalling Option
Now there are actually two options in the Utilities windowyou can choose from.
The first is the Time Machine backup. If you are in the habitof regularly backing up with Time Machine, and one day, you accidentally deletea whole bunch of system files, you could just roll the computer back to a TimeMachine backup from say the day before. This would be the equivalent of doing aSystem Restore on a Windows PC.
But I don’t use Time Machine (I manually backup). So for meand others like me, the only other option is to choose the “Reinstall macOS”option. So go ahead and click on that, and click “Continue” when it promptsyou.
Step Six –Pretend To Read The User Agreement
You will now be asked to read the user agreement. Do whateveryone else does and pretend you read it and click “Agree”. Don’t worry,Apple will never know.
Now choose a disk to install the operating system on. In mycase, there is only one disk. Choose it and continue.
The re-installation process will now begin.
The computer will restart several times during the processand can take up to an hour or more to finish. The nice thing is that it doeseverything by itself from now on so you can go off and do something else in themeantime. You’re not stuck staring at the screen watching your life slip away.
Step Seven –Set Everything Back Up Again
Once the system has been reinstalled, you will have to beginthe tedious process of putting things back to the way they were. This willinclude :
- Switchingon the Firewall.
- Switchingon FileVault.
- Re-encryptingthe startup disk.
- Reinstallingyour apps.
- Bringingessential files back onto the computer from your backups.
- Addinga screen lock PIN code.
Encrypting Hard Drive For Os X File
Essentially you have to go through System Preferences andcheck each thing one-by-one. The computer is now back to factory settings soany tweaks and customizations you previously made will be gone.
There is a great guide called Hardening macOS which gives you a huge list (morethan 40) of security precautions you should carry out with a fresh install ofmacOS. I highly recommend you refer to it and do as many of them as possible.Some of it might sound like overkill but you can never be too careful.
Summary
This article offers detailed guidance to help you recover data from encrypted (EFS) hard drive partitions in Windows 10/8/7 and Mac OS X. If you are having problems in restoring data from EFS partitions in your Windows hard drive, follow to find solutions here.
'I have a 160GB hard drive partition used as a photo album in my PC to store all fancy photos for my life. I have stored almost about 2 years' photos there and encrypted so to avoid data loss problem. I upgraded my computer from Windows 8 to Windows 10. And here is the problem that I lost the password for the EFS hard drive partition and I'm wondering whether I can still access my photos and restore them from the EFS encrypted hard drive partition? And I want to move those photos to my new external hard drive. So can you help me to get all my photos out from the EFS hard drive partition under Windows 10?'
If you are having a similar problem and cannot access data to EFS partition or hard drives in PC or Mac, don't bother. Here below, you'll find wanted solutions to restore data from encrypted hard drive partition now.
Trying to unlock a hard drive to resolve Windows installation problem? Go to the linked page.
1 - Decrypt EFS (encrypted) hard drive partition
Here are two ways to decrypt the HDD in Windows OS and one way to decrypt Mac OS.
Decrypt Windows hard drive - Option One
If you have a certificate for the encrypted (EFS) hard drive partition, you can access data in the hard drive with ease. Here below are detailed steps about how to decrypt EFS (encrypted) hard drive partition in Windows 10/8/7:
Step 1: Open Run dialogue (Windows + R keys), type certmgr.msc and hit Enter
Step 2: Open Certificate Manager > Click Personal folder in the left pane;
Step 3: Select Action > All Tasks > Import and follow the Certificate Import Wizard
- Follow the onscreen guidance and decrypt the hard drive partition with the certificate, then you'll be able to get all your data stored in the hard drive partition and transfer to your new storage device.
If you don't have any certificate or password for decrypting the EFS (encrypted) hard drive partition in Windows OS, you may follow the other method behind.
![Encrypting Hard Drive For Os X Encrypting Hard Drive For Os X](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126574820/239956072.jpg)
Decrypt Windows hard drive - Option Two
Enter: Diskpart in the search bar > list disk (you should be able to spot the encrypted hard drive by the size, take note of the number listed against it) > select disk x (where x is the number from the previous step) > clean > create partition primary > select partition 1 > active > format fs=ntfs quick /override > exit.
For example:
Decrypt Mac hard drive
Open Terminal and paste: sudo chflags 0 /Volumes/* and hit Return > enter your admin password and press Return > type: sudo chmod a+rx /Volumes/* and hit Return > type: killall Finder and hit Return.
When all these steps are done, you'll be able to decrypt the hard drive on your Mac.
If you have forgotten the password, you can follow the next steps to erase and decrypt Mac hard drive:
If you have forgotten the password, you can follow the next steps to erase and decrypt Mac hard drive:
1. Launch Terminal and enter: diskutil cs and high return.
2. The Terminal will produce a result comprising of codes in a hierarchy. In the code copy the alphanumeric code which is next to Logical Volume Group.
3. Type: diskutil cs delete XXXX____YYYY___ZZZZ___XYZ and hit Enter.
2 - Restore data from decrypted hard drive partition with data recovery software
After decrypting the HDD, you shall be able to open and use previously encrypted hard drive partition saved data by then. If you still cannot access those saved data, relax and let professional data recovery software help.
Professional EFS recovery alternative software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can help you access to all saved data in decrypted hard drive partition which was encrypted previously. It has both a Windows and Mac version. So, download the appropriate version according to your needs.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can access your data in the previously encrypted hard drive partition without any password or certificate in Windows OS. You can free download it and follow below steps to restore your data such as photos back to your new storage device or a safe spot on your PC.
Step 1. Launch EaseUS hard drive recovery software.
Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard on your PC and select the drive on your hard disk where you lost or deleted files. Click 'Scan' and let this program scan all lost data and files on the selected hard drive.
Step 2. Check and preview all lost hard drive data.
Find lost hard drive data from 'Deleted Files', 'Lost Files' or use 'Filter' to quickly navigate the lost data. Check and double-click to preview these found files.
Step 3. Restore lost hard drive data to a safe location.
After the preview, select wanted files that you lost on the drive and click 'Recover' to save them. Browse to choose a safe location on your PC or other external storage devices to store these restored hard drive data.
After restoring data from the encrypted hard drive partition, you can reformat it into NTFS and make it reusable and readable again.
You may need further help for tough data loss situations like reformatting drive, RAW disk, partition loss, repartition failures and system boot error. Consult with EaseUS Data Recovery Experts for cost-efficient one-on-one manual recovery service. They could offer the following services after FREE diagnosis:
- 1. Unformat the drive
- 2. Repair the RAID, RAW disk or operating system
- 3. Recover lost partition (the one that cannot be recovered by software)