MacOS – Time Machine backup to encrypted disk

backupfilevaultmacosrestore

I have a huge problem. I just exchanged the SSD of my MacBook Pro. I made a backup just before – everything worked fine.
Now I wanted to restore my Mac from the backup – Problem: apparently the Backup Volume is encrypted with FileVault – which I did not know before. Now I don't remember this password and therefore can not access or restore data from my Backup Volume.

Does anyone have an Idea how to access my Backup?

I wonder why my Mac never asked me for a FileVault Password when either logging in or when running a backup the Volume via Time Machine.

Best Answer

FileVault is for internal startup disks; it sounds like you've just got an encrypted external disk. It's possible when you set up the encryption on the external disk, you saved the password in your Keychain, so in the future macOS reads your keychain for the password to the disk.

If you can't remember the password and don't have it elsewhere, then you cannot access the data.

Put your previous SSD back in your Mac, and either connect the external disk and decrypt it, or inspect the keychain to obtain the password for the disk.

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You can remove yourself from being able to unlock the disk:

sudo fdesetup remove -user username

Is it possible to boot from an encrypted external hard drive

It should work, but if you use SuperDuper! a workaround is necessary:

I backed up my main system volume (hereinafter referred to as "System") to the unencrypted! backup volume (hereinafter referred to as "SystemBackup"). After rebooting to SystemBackup i tried to encrypt the volume SystemBackup, which wasn't successful, because the Recovery HD on the backup disk is missing. SuperDuper! only creates a copy of the system volume.

To get around this you first have to install a working system on the backup disk or use another way to create a Recovery HD volume on the backup disk and then erase the main backup volume again.
Backup your main system volume to the backup volume.
Boot to your (bootable) backup volume SystemBackup
Enable File Vault 2 in the system preferences.
Reboot to SystemBackup like advised and continue encrypting.
After encryption has finished boot to your main volume again
Now backup your main volume as usual using SuperDuper!

In my second/third attempt i used CarbonCopyCloner. In contrary to SuperDuper! CCC creates a backup, which usually includes the Recovery HD:

Backup your main system volume to the unencrypted! backup volume. You might have to initiate the backup of the Recovery HD manually. In my first attempt it was backed up automatically and in a second attempt i had to initiate it manually.
Boot to your (bootable) backup volume SystemBackup
Enable File Vault 2 in the system preferences.
Reboot to SystemBackup like advised and continue encrypting.
After encryption has finished boot to your main volume again.
Now backup your main volume as usual using CarbonCopyCloner.

Even after completely deleting my main disk (File Vault volume & Recovery HD) to simulate a disk failure, i have been able to boot to my system backup volume.

Don't encrypt the backup volume in the Finder (e.g. control-click on the the volume) before or after backing up your main volume!

An important note from the CCC knowledge base:
Mac firmware cannot "see" FileVault-protected volumes larger than 2.2 TB when the disk is attached via USB. If attaching the disk to your Mac via Firewire or Thunderbolt is not an option, create a 2TB partition at the beginning of the external disk to work around this limitation.

Best Answer

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