Stumped

grggary

grggary

Registered
Hi guys,
I feel kind of like an idiot right now so I thought I'd see if you can give me a hand. For the heck of it I decided to see what happens when I turn on File Vault and, when I turned it back off it seems as if all my preferences, bookmarks, etc. Any easy way to restore that stuff? Thanks!
 
I wasn't very clear. What I meant to say is that all my preferences/bookmarks, etc. disappeared. It acts like I created a new user, although I didn't. All I did was turn on File Vault (which my assumption was all it would do is encrypt the contents of my home folder and then decrypt them when I turn it off) which logged me out durring the encryption process, following which I logged in. When I did, my background had changed, all of my extra dock items were gone, programs act like it's the first time I launched them, etc. I went back and turned off File Vault and restarted, but my computer remains in the new state. I only have one user—me— and I'm set up with full admin privileges. Do you think repairing my privileges would fix it, or would I be cementing my new status in stone. I'd kind of like to hear your opinions before I start tweaking and make things worse. Better not to touch it and dig my hole deeper experimenting if any of you have a softer, easier way. Thanks guys & gals!
 
OK, I'm not stumped anymore. Ever the courageous one, I found the missing files and preferences and restored them to my home folder and all is well. Strange that File Vault would remove the files—I still don't know why it did that, but nevertheless the problem is solved. I'm tempted to avoid that feature in the future unless I neglected to check something before I turned it on. It seems that there would be a more elegant way than restoring the files manually. Anyway, thanks for reading about me talking myself through the problem! Now back to the folks with REAL problems!
 
I've been warning about FileVault since it's been around. Apparently, it's simply more hassle than I would allow. Most users fill their harddrives anyway, so turning FileVault on and off is almost impossible, anyway, because you need at least as much free space as your home folder is big.
 
I can understand why you raise the alarm. It took me a minute to figure out how to restore everything, but there sure isn't anything that would be obvious to the casual user. What I'd like to see would be a way to simply lock any folder to make it open only with a password. I could really care less about encryption—what I have isn't THAT important or private, but I still do have receipts and stuff in my documents folder that would be nice to put a lock on. I remember the old "encrypt" feature from before, which wasn't bad. Too bad there isn't a simple way just to keep someone from opening whatever folder you care to designate without first entering a password.
 
I'd simply go with a protected disk image, then. Go to Disk Utility and create a new, encrypted, disk image. You mount it (entering the passphrase), save stuff to it and then unmount it. Stuff is safe. You can create folders within that disk image quite normally, of course. :)
 
Good idea. That never even crossed my mind. Nothing much to hide but some receipts and since we're wireless better safe than sorry. Thanks!
 
I'll add my 2 cents. I have enabled and disabled File Vault on my account at least 3 times in the last couple of years, with no problems.
That said, always do backups first, in either direction!

I've heard of problems that caused data loss, so I won't say everyone should do it.
I will say, if you are worried about what might happen with the data if your machine is stolen, or another user logs onto your machine while you're away, then DO IT!
Then copy the Master Password keychain to an external drive, and delete it from your boot drive. You will need to restore the master password keychain for some operations. Take this seriously and don't forget to make backups.

:)
 
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