MP 1,1-5,1 FileVault on 10.14

[monkeybagel]

Hello,

So from everything I have read, FileVault is almost completely incompatible with a Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 no matter the GPU installed?

Is this a limitation of the EFI Boot Rom in the Mac Pro, a GPU limitation, or something else? Are there any workarounds discovered so far?

Thank you!

 

[Soba]

Hello,

So from everything I have read, FileVault is almost completely incompatible with a Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 no matter the GPU installed?

Is this a limitation of the EFI Boot Rom in the Mac Pro, a GPU limitation, or something else? Are there any workarounds discovered so far?

Thank you!

The limitations and possible edge cases prompted Apple to just disable FileVault totally.

However, someone here did find a way to encrypt their drive. Further background and a link to the workaround are here (though I’m not sure how robust the workaround is, so I recommend further research if you want to go this route) :

MacPro 5.1 can't do filevault after Mojave-upgrade any more

Hello, after having laboriously prepared my brave MacPro 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon from 2012 for Mojave (switched off FileVault (Decrypt lasted 7 hours), bought and installed a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760, installed Mojave (10.14.2), BootRom being 140.0.0.0.0, hd being APFS) everything works...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Ludacrisvp]

If you have a GPU with an EFI boot screen then you can follow this guide.
The guide bypasses the check that Apple is doing for your machine looking for the board-ID.
This allows you to avoid needing another machine to set the initial encryption.

[GUIDE] Bypass FileVault blacklist on 5,1 in Mojave -- on existing installation

I know there are some methods to get FileVault to work but none that I recall are simple for someone who is already running macOS, or they require access to another Mac to do it. Apple added simple board-id checks to the Security prefpane file and the command line utility to prevent enabling...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[monkeybagel]

Thanks guys!