Do when macOS does not boot an APFS volume anymore and I cannot unlock it

apfsboothard drivemojave

I have an SSD, which until this morning I booted from through an usb3-to-sata adapter. I shut the computer off, removed the drive and came back to the Macbook hanging on a black screen when trying to boot from it.

I have tried with both MacBook Pro 15-inch 2018 and a Mid-2012 13" model. They behave similarly in that nothing happens after pressing ALT during boot and selecting the volume. Both Macbooks have macOS Mojave on them.

Things I've tried

1

Booting a different volume and trying to mount the offending disk (e.g. via disk utility), this window appears:

But it does not allow me to actually enter a password.

2

I have also tried the following form the terminal:

diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk3s1

This prompts for the password, but fails with

Passphrase incorrect or user does not exist

although the passphrase is correct.

3

I then ran diskutil apfs listcryptousers /dev/disk3s1 and got this list:

Cryptographic user for disk3s1 (1 found)
|
+-- EBC6C064-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
    Type: Personal Recovery User

Not sure what this means, but I used the UUID to unlock the volume, to no avail:

$> diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk3s1 -user EBC6C064-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECA
Passphrase:
Unlocking the specific cryptographic user EBC6C064-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECA on APFS Volume disk3s1
Error unlocking APFS Volume: Malformed UUID (-69578)

At this point, I guess I have to erase the drive and restore it from backup, but macos recovery does not allow me to erase it without unlocking it. Seems to me I'm trapped by buggy software.
What can I do here? (even if it involves erasing the disk in question)?

Best Answer

Regarding the first attempt to simply use unlockVolume, please consider trying this variation instead:

diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk3s1 -user disk

Your attempt to unlock using the UUID failed, because you failed to enter the complete UUID. I don't know if you typed it in manually or used cut-n-paste, but you've missed the last letter "C" in the UUID - making it one character short.

I would try that command again with the full UUID - and remember that you're not supposed to enter your passphrase for the drive to unlock it with that UUID - instead you need to enter the personal recovery key. The personal recovery key was presented to you when you first enabled FileVault (I assume this drive was previously a boot drive) - and it takes the form of 24 upper cases alpha-numeric characters, grouped in 4 seperated by dashes. Something like AB1C-DEF2-G3HI-4JKL-MNO5-PQRS.

If the above fails, you can always erase everything on the drive completely, as you indicate this would be an acceptable option.

You can do that by opening Terminal.app and running the following command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk3 bs=1m

After it has finished, reboot the system so that it forgets the old partitioning information. Then you can use Disk Utility to add a partition table and format the drive.

Related Solutions

I think I messed up the Fusion Drive on the 1TB iMac (with BootCamp)

Theoretically everything is fine with your Fusion Drive. Fusion Drives look like this. Disk0 is your SSD with 121 GB and disk1 is your HDD with ~1 TB (~1.121 TB summed up).

The larger parts of your SSD (disk0s2) and your HDD (disk1s2) are pooled to a CoreStorage LVG (Fusion Drive: disk3) with a size of 967.8 GB. The rest is reserved for EFIs, a Recovery HD (alltogether ~1.3 GB) and your old Windows partition - now probably free space (~152 GB).

The logical volume 'Macintosh HD' (967.8 GB) spans disk0s2 and disk1s2. This is the first 'Macintosh HD' in picture 1. The volume 'Macintosh HD' - it's the one visible on the desktop - should ideally also have about 967.8 GB. This is the second 'Macintosh HD' in picture 1.
In fact it has only 852.67 GB (see picture 3).

In the second picture the logical volume 'Macintosh HD' is the first listed in black, the volume 'Macintosh HD' is the second listed in black, the other two 'Macintosh HD's listed in grey are the parts of your SSD and HDD dedicated to the logical volume 'Macintosh HD'.

In my opinion something went wrong after deleting various partitions with the Bootcamp Assistant/Disk Utility or in Windows.

Preparation:

Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite).

Now you may either repair CoreStorage or rebuild your Fusion Drive:

'Repair CoreStorage' (not recommended):

First i would try to check the volume 'Macintosh HD' with Disk Utility. If the volume is corrupted consider a reinstall of Mac OS X.
If the volume is ok quit Disk Utility
Open Terminal and enter diskutil unmountDisk /dev/LVIdentifier and both diskutil unmountDisk /dev/DiskContainingApple_CoreStorageIdentifier
In your case: first diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk3 then diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0 and diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
remove the EFI NO NAME partition with gpt remove -i IndexNumberOfEFINoName DiskIdentifier:
gpt remove -i 4 disk1
Remount the CoreStorage disks and then the Logical Volume:
In your case: first diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk0 and diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk1 and then diskutil mount /dev/disk3.

enter gpt -r -vvv show /dev/diskIdentfierOfApple_CoreStorage to get infos of your HDD CoreStorage disk.
In your case: gpt -r -vvv show /dev/disk1
It should look like this:

-bash-3.2# gpt -r -vvv show /dev/disk1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512;         blocks=1953525168
gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, start=40, size=409600
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, start=409640, size=1671210848
gpt show: /dev/disk1: GPT partition: type=426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, start=1671620488, size=1269760
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167                               
     start          size  index contents                                        
         0             1        PMBR                                            
         1             1        Pri GPT header                                  
         2            32        Pri GPT table                                   
        34             6
        40        409600      1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640    1671210848      2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1671620488       1269760      3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1672890248     280634887
1953525135            32        Sec GPT table
1953525167             1        Sec GPT header

The free space on your HDD has 280634887 blocks. Please calculate the biggest block number dividable through 8. That's 280634880 blocks (á 512 bytes) which equals 143685058560 B or ~143.7 GB. Add the size of your HDD CoreStorage Physical Volume (852666400768 B) The result is 143685058560 B + 852666400768 B = 996351459328 B
Resize your HDD CoreStorage physical volume with diskutil cs resizeDisk HDDPVUUID newsize
In your case: diskutil cs resizeDisk 93892BE8-2B7F-4ABD-A4C3-984495DCD98D 996351459328b
Calculate the maximal size of your CoreStorage Logical Volume in diskutil cs list: (size disk0s2) + (size disk1s2) In your case that's 120988852224 B + 996351459328 B = 1117340311552 B. That should be the size of your refreshed Logical Volume Group.
Resize your Logical Volume with diskutil cs resizeVolume LVUUID LVGSize-128 MB In your case that's diskutil cs resizeVolume D237FFDC-7DA4-41D7-AC13-4CC7E5E8C0A0 1117212311552b. If you get an error (There is not enough free space...) choose a smaller size like 1117148311552b.
Quit Terminal and open Disk Utility.
Check your expanded CoreStorage Volume for errors.
Quit Disk Utility, choose your CS volume as startup disk and restart your Mac

'Rebuild Fusion Drive' (recommended if you have a Time Machine backup)

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:
diskutil cs list to get the CoreStorage listing.
Copy the Logical Volume UUID, it's the fifth listed.
Now delete the Logical Volume with diskutil cs deleteVolume LVUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs deleteVolume D237FFDC-7DA4-41D7-AC13-4CC7E5E8C0A0.
Copy the Logical Volume Group UUID, it's the first listed in the listing of diskutil cs list.
Then delete the Logical Volume Group with diskutil cs delete LVGUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs delete 1EFE58BC-3613-44C4-86EE-D816F3B66E3E
Enter exit and quit 'Terminal'
Open 'Disk Utility'. Enter 'Ignore' if you are asked to fix the drives.
Choose your SSD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~121 GB

Example:
Choose your HDD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~1 TB

Example:
Quit Disk Utility and open Terminal
Enter diskutil list

Example (your disk identifiers and sizes are different of course: Your volume SSD probably has the Identifier disk0s2 and the size 121 GB and your volume HDD probably has the Identifier disk1s2 and the size 1.0 TB):
Enter diskutil cs create "Name" IdentifierSSD IdentifierHDD
In your case probably diskutil cs create "Macintosh HD" disk0s2 disk1s2.

Copy the resulting LVGUUID

Example:
Enter diskutil cs CreateVolume LVGUUID jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%.

Example:
Enter diskutil cs list
Check the size of your Logical Volume. It should have the size ~1.121 TB

Example:
Quit Terminal
Open 'Disk Utility' and check your newly created volume for errors
Quit 'Disk Utility'
Attach your external Time Machine backup drive or check this answer if you use NAS or another network share.
Open 'Restore from Time Machine Backup'
Choose the appropriate Time Machine backup and restore your system
Reboot to your restored system.
Unmount and detach your Time Machine backup drive
Open 'Terminal' and enter 'diskutil list'
Check if your 'Recovery HD' is listed.
If your 'Recovery HD' is missing, usually reinstalling your current system with the latest available system installer (e.g. 'Install OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)' if Mavericks is currently installed) will recreate it without loosing any data. AFAIK Recovery Partition Creator 3.8 will NOT create a Recovery HD on CoreStorage volumes.
After reinstalling the system with the latest available system installer open App Store and install the latest security fixes.

MacOS – APFS Volume Total Shows Less Free Space Than Container and How to Reclaim Space

The results from the math shown below is about 17.3 GB of unallocated space.

 250.0     Total drive space
   -.2907  EFI partition
-190.0     APFS container
   -.1342  Microsoft Reserved
 -42.9     BOOTCAMP
   -.4719  Windows Recovery
_________
  17.2842  Unallocated space

I assume this unallocated space is between the Apple_APFS and Microsoft Reserved partitions. If so, then the correct command to add the free space to the Apple_APFS partition is given below. Before using this command, open the MiniTool application and confirm the free space is between the Apple_APFS and Microsoft Reserved partitions.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

From the information you posted, I am guessing the free space will between the Microsoft Reserved and Microsoft Basic Data partitions. If this is the case, then you will first need to move the Microsoft Reserved partition partition to the end of the free space. Below is an outline of the steps to follow.

The MiniTool can not move this partition. Instead you can make a copy of the partition.
The copy of the Microsoft Reserved partition will have the wrong partition type id. You will need to use the MiniTool application to change this id to Windows - Microsoft Reserved Partition.
The new partition will need to be assigned the GPT_BASIC_DATA_ATTRIBUTE_NO_DRIVE_LETTER attribute bit. Basically, this is bit 0x8000000000000000. Unfortunately, this can to be done using MiniTool. You will have to use the diskpart command from a Administrator Command Prompt window.
After exiting diskpart, you will need to reboot Windows.
Use the MiniTool to remove the original Microsoft Reserved partition.

A final note:

You posted the following question.

That operation successfully executed and as you will see, container for APFS is at 190 GB now. But my Macintosh HD is still occupying 165.4 GB. I tried resizing using (/usr/sbin/diskutil apfs resizeContainer /dev/disk1 0) but to no avail. Does anyone know how I can reclaim the 20 GB space I freed up before and use container to its max capacity?

Answer: Basically, the question makes no sense. The APFS container has a size of 190 GB and the Macintosh HD volume is using 165.4 GB of this container's space. If you enlarge the APFS container, the size of the Macintosh HD volume will not change.

Things I've tried

1

2

3

Best Answer

Related Solutions

I think I messed up the Fusion Drive on the 1TB iMac (with BootCamp)

MacOS – APFS Volume Total Shows Less Free Space Than Container and How to Reclaim Space

Related Question