Macbook Pro (15" early 2011) asking me to Enter Password to Unlock Disk after boot up???

[walnawk]

I did a clean install on my Macbook Pro Early 2011, 15". Every time after I boot up, after logging into my own account and before arriving at the full desktop, it kept asking me to enter my password to Unlock Disk. I don't have FileVault turned on.

How can I stop the Mac from asking me to "Unlock Disk"?

I appreciate for your help in advance.

 

[DeltaMac]

So, your system asks to unlock a disk AFTER you are logged in to your own account?
Do you have ANOTHER disk plugged in to your MBPro?

If you are already logged in to your account, then what happens if you choose to ignore that request to unlock a disk?

Open your Terminal app.
Run the command

diskutil list

Post a screenshot of the result of that command.

 

[walnawk]

Thanks. Here are two photos. 1. Mac asking me for the password. 2. Diskutil list results.

 

[walnawk]

I don’t even know there are 5 partitions and how I ended up with all of them.

 

[DeltaMac]

Those 5 partitions that you see are normal for Catalina. The partitions are set up like that when you install (or upgrade to) Catalina.
The Unlock window is appearing because your Macintosh HD is encrypted. If you just did a clean install, you probably erased the drive before installing your macOS system, and there is a choice to erase, formatted APFS (Encrypted).
That would be the reason that you get that unlock password each time.
That format (APFS (Encrypted)) makes it very simple and quick to turn on FileVault. The boot drive is already encrypted, so FileVault just adds a bit of "magic" to that.
If you don't want that unlock password, then you have to remove the encryption:
Make sure that FileVault is turned OFF (from your Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences)
Make sure you have a backup of your boot drive.
Erase, using APFS (the older Mac OS Extended (journaled) is OK, too. It will be automatically changed to APFS when you reinstall Catalina) The important choice is to not choose the option for encrypted
And, reinstall Catalina, restore your other files and apps from your backup.

 

[walnawk]

Thank you for your clear explanations. I really appreciate and understand completely.

In my situation, erase and reinstallation is the only way to go?

 

[DeltaMac]

If you did, in fact, format the drive as APFS (Encrypted), then yes, the path away from unlocking the drive every time you boot is a short one: back up, reformat (without encryption), reinstall/restore.
And, should you want to return to full drive encryption in the future, then you would use FileVault to do that (without the little handicap of encrypting the drive during format), and now you know

 

[walnawk]

Yes. For sure I know. Thank you so much for teaching me.

I did some risky thing just now, because my computer doesn't have data on it. I went straight into Disk Utility and erase the MacintoshHD (into APFS - not encrypted). Rebooted, so far first time, it stop asking for the password to unlock disk. Lets see how long this will last.

I always wanted to Mac but it is just way out of price ranch; I finally broke down and bought this used one for $180. My goal is just to experiment with it. Hence, learning through trouble

I already did the dosdude1 catallina patcher thing. But the Catalina drained so much battery, and the fans of the machine kept coming on. So I downgraded it back to High Sierra. May be I should buy more rams and SSD....