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Macbook crashed during FileVault encryption.

My gf updated the OS on her MacBook Air then enabled FileVault. During the FileVault encryption process, the computer crashed. Upon startup, the screen looks like this:

There is no area to enter password and login. I then booted the computer in recovery mode and attempted to do a clean install of OS X. Unfortunately, I could not select the HD for the OS to be installed on as it does not appear:

I then went into disk utilities and found that her hard drive was not mounted, and I was unable to mount it, disable encryption, nor repair it through disk utilities.


I may be wrong, but I think the hard drive has gotten all messed up from the computer crashing midway through FileVault encryption. I believe I can fix this by wiping the hard drive and reinstalling OS X but I would like to know first if there are any less drastic options available.

Posted on Nov 23, 2019 10:38 AM

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Posted on Nov 24, 2019 5:41 PM

See if you can boot into Safe Mode (it takes longer to boot). If you cannot boot into Safe Mode, then try Verbose Mode to see if there are any clues shown in the scrolling boot log. Usually the last entries will hold the clues since that is where it gets stuck.


If the above doesn't help or work, then you can erase the whole drive using Disk Utility. You may need to click on "View" and select "Show all devices" before the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility. Then you can reinstall macOS. This method will destroy all data on the drive, but I don't think you have any choice if Filevault is stuck.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 24, 2019 5:41 PM in response to ImpeachDevinNunes

See if you can boot into Safe Mode (it takes longer to boot). If you cannot boot into Safe Mode, then try Verbose Mode to see if there are any clues shown in the scrolling boot log. Usually the last entries will hold the clues since that is where it gets stuck.


If the above doesn't help or work, then you can erase the whole drive using Disk Utility. You may need to click on "View" and select "Show all devices" before the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility. Then you can reinstall macOS. This method will destroy all data on the drive, but I don't think you have any choice if Filevault is stuck.

Nov 23, 2019 6:11 PM in response to ImpeachDevinNunes

Unfortunately if the computer is using the new APFS file system, there are no third party repair utilities available since Apple has not released the necessary AFPS documentation yet.


If the laptop was running High Sierra, then you need to boot into macOS 10.13+ in order to try and repair the drive & volume using Disk Utility First Aid. Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R which should boot the most current OS supported by the laptop. Sometimes Internet Recovery Mode doesn't load the newest OS, but the oldest one even when using the correct key combination. Or you can try creating a bootable macOS USB installer if you have another Mac.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


If the laptop's drive is using the HFS+ file system (aka MacOS Extended), then the paid third party utility Disk Warrior is very good, but I don't know if it will work properly on a drive midway through the encryption process. Disk Warrior is unable to repair an APFS file system volume.

Nov 24, 2019 5:32 PM in response to HWTech

I created a bootable High Sierra USB installer. I booted the computer through this drive. As far as I can tell, the internal drive is fine. But when I try to install High Sierra on the drive, it says it cannot install on the drive until FileVault has finished encryption. As I showed in the first picture, I can't get past the login screen so there is no way for me to run FileVault and finish the encryption. Any advice on where to go from here?

Macbook crashed during FileVault encryption.

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