I need to factory reset my Macbook but cannot recall the password.
So I used Cmd+R during startup and go to terminal and typed 'resetpassword'
according to this advice
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5309334?tstart=0
Now 'Reset Password' application appears but there is nothing where I have to select the volume containing the user account.
Why does this happen?
Best Answer
The Mac was probably encrypted with FileVault 2.
You don't normally have to enter a password to start up in single user mode, but if FileVault 2 is enabled, you do. If FileVault 2 is enabled, you can't use the Reset Password application to reset the password of an account either.
If FileVault is enabled, I don't think there is any way to erase and reinstall OS X without knowing the password or the encryption key. When I enabled FileVault on a VM and started up from the recovery partition, the erase tab was missing from Disk Utility, and I couldn't create another partition from Disk Utility. When I tried selecting Reinstall OS X, the list of volumes did not include the Macintosh HD volume.
If the previous owner enabled the option to store the recovery key with Apple, you might be able to retrieve the recovery key by contacting Apple support:
If you can't get the recovery key from Apple and you can't contact the previous owner, your only option might be to replace the hard drive.
(I also copied and pasted instructions for three ways to reset the password of an account below. None of them can be used if FileVault 2 is enabled and you don't know the password though.)