To File Vault or to Not File Vault? 12" PB

S

Sogni

*gone*
Dumb question, since I feel I NEED File Vault with using a Portable Computer and working on Client stuff 'n sensitive material...

I had a little mishap with my Panther install (I always crash computer! Does not matter who it's by or how "strong" they make 'em - leave it to me to find how to crash it! LOL) as I had upgraded the OS that came with my new Power Book (Jaguar). I had setup File Vault and installed EVERYTHING I needed and all the files I needed.

Then the OS had a problem (or was it the hard drive?) where it would hang at "Waiting for Login Window". Nothing I did would work, and none of the tools I had could fix it (errored out). And I don't have Disk Warrior...

I don't know if I was doing Target Disk Mode wrong (does that only work with FireWire? Would it work with USB?), or there might be something wrong with my wirewire port (I have no way of checking at the moment, will take it to the Apple Store for them to look at it later).

Anyway, since I didn't have anything I couldnt replace (except for some flash work I had worked on), I finally formatted the drive and installed Panther fresh (hey, I at least got rid of the OS9 Bloat! :D).

Now I'm a little weary since I couldn't see my user directory to copy stuff off of it (not sure how I woulda done that anyway since I couldn't get Target Disk Mode to work), I'm kinda weary of using File Vault now as I'm afraid I'll lose everything I'm protecting if something goes wrong.

Of course I now use the Backup utility when I'm near my other Mac and have it backup important stuff via the network. But still...


Is File Vault safe to use now? I remember a bug with it that would do some weird things to your settings if you "recovered disk space" (or something like that. Is that bug gone?
 
Target Disk Mode only works over FireWire, not USB.

If you carry sensitive information that you wouldn't want thieves to see or use, turn it on after you update to 10.3.1. Just remember to keep backups somewhere at home, in case something goes wrong!
 
Sogni said:
Dumb question, since I feel I NEED File Vault with using a Portable Computer and working on Client stuff 'n sensitive material...
Click to expand...

You can always just create a normal disc image and store your sensitive files in it (File vault is nothing more than a auto-expanding disc image), if you are concerned about file vault's reliability.

The 10.3.1 update is supposed to have corrected the File vault issue though.
 
I would say do filevault, I haven't heard of any problems since the 10.3.1 update came out, I'm sure that apple was working their butts off fixing filevault and firewire drive access after all the problems that arose. But keep good backups, just in case something goes wrong. FileValut sounds like such an awesome feature for laptop users.
 
That whole file encryption thing kind of scares me. Maybe I'm old school, but in my day, when the laptops got stolen, you just lost your info and you had to deal with the ramifications. I don't keep sensitive information on my laptop. People are after my machine, not my info...

For some, I am sure this is a concern, but not for me.
 
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