My disk is formatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted). I have a super long and random password. It won't let me paste my password in and I keep manually typing it wrong. There is nothing on this disk and I just need to changed the password to something that I can manually change. What do I do? Here is my dialog that I keep getting:
Anyone with any suggestions?
UPDATE: I do not care if I lose the data or not.
Good encryption allows for no recovery. That's how it protects your system from other people.
Encryption sounds like a good idea till you learn to live with it and take extra precautions to prevent the data loss it will force upon you in the event you lose the password. Upon covering all the bases it becomes a useful tool to prevent recovery of data from stolen equipment and not a liability from forgetting the password.
Various other operating systems allow for making a recovery disk or thumb drive when you first encrypt the disk that you can then store in a safe place in case this event happens.
The only recourse is to get it right at least once if you have it written down correctly.
I'm facing the exact same issue. The HD in my MacMini has become corrupted and my only option is to erase it, but, in a fit of security consciousness, I encrypted it with FileVault and so Disk Utility won't erase it at all.
So, not caring about the data on that MacMini (it's just my TV server, nothing that cant be reinstalled and all the actual data is on an external drive) I've booted it in target disk mode (hold down t when you start it up and connect it via FireWire to another Mac) then fire up your Terminal.
% diskutil cs list to get the the Logical Volume Group ID
then run
% diskutil cs delete XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX <-- put the Logical Volume Group ID in place of the Xs
In my case it said
The Core Storage Logical Volume Group UUID is 48AE3F70-916B-4BEB-AF63-0C2423E1481E
Started CoreStorage operation
Ejecting Logical Volumes
Destroying Logical Volume Group
Error: -69783: Unable to delete the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group
You can safely ignore the error however. When I then fired up Disk Utility there was my disk - newly erased. I will now reboot my iMac in Recovery Disk mode and re-install Mavericks on the MacMini. (Fingers crossed)
diskutil cs list output as text in addition to (or instead of) the screenshot — see this.
Commented
Feb 9, 2020 at 1:49
Without the current password, you will have to erase and reformat the disk in Apple's Disk Utility. It is always a good idea to store these passwords in a safe place. Apple also allows you to store the key with them. See this article for more information.
I started getting this dialog last week. Not sure why the dialog showed up since the disk is still mounted properly.
(I didn't remember the password for this disk so bumped into this question.)
In my case the password is still stored in my Keychain and it's possible to show the password there. Check the "Show password" box (shown in the screenshot below) and enter your administrator password. This allowed me to add it to my password manager.
…very strange. i had the same problem with a new pny 1tb ssd, using mac os mojave, but solved it quite easily. i plugged-in the ssd using a jsaux ssd to usb-a adapter. the password screen popped up, i clicked "cancel". i opened disk utility, clicked the subject unmounted volume, clicked "erase", selected format "mac os extended journaled encrypted", entered new password, clicked "choose", clicked "erase", and it was done in less than one minute.
I had the same problem, and This SuperUser answer worked. Basically you get into the terminal and use diskutil directly to bypass DiskUtility's overprotection.
The only option is to securely erase the effected partition using a similar method to how you encrypted it originally.
You may find this article from OSXDaily helpful.
