Set password/encryption for hard drives without deleting

[Silly John Fatty]

Hi all,

I have two questions.

I'd like to set up a password and/or encryption for:

• … an external hard drive
• … a hard drive in my classic Mac Pro (which is not my boot drive)

I have FileVault enabled on my boot drive.

1. Is it possible to set up FileVault for the second drive in my Mac Pro, as well as my external hard drive?
2. Is it possible to set a password for these two drives without removing all of its contents?

Apparently, if you want to do this through the Disk Utility app, you have to delete the drive first. I don't want/can't do that. Thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

What you could do:

- You will need a spare external drive
- You will need either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper
(both are free to download and use for 30 days)
Next...
- Use CCC or SD to clone the contents of the non-boot drive to the external drive
- Now you have an EXACT COPY of the non-boot drive
- Use disk utility to erase and set up the non-boot drive with encryption
- Once done, use CCC (or SD) to "RE-clone" the contents of the backup BACK TO the non-boot drive.

This should also work with your other drive.

 

[Weaselboy]

I have FileVault enabled on my boot drive.

1. Is it possible to set up FileVault for the second drive in my Mac Pro, as well as my external hard drive?
2. Is it possible to set a password for these two drives without removing all of its contents?

Protect your Mac information with encryption

On your Mac, you can encrypt information on removable media such as CDs, DVDs, and memory cards and require a password to decode it.

support.apple.com

Yes to both... just follow this ^. No need to erase the drives.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Thanks, that sounds very annoying, however. And I would have to get another external drive. I think I'll wait until I change drives/computer again. Thanks for the explanation!

 

[Wando64]

I have encrypted all of my disks using the Apple Support method highlighted above by Weaselboy.
It is very straight forward. No need to delete or reformat. Nothing annoying about it other than the encryption process will take some time, however you will be able to carry on using the disk while it is encrypting.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Protect your Mac information with encryption

On your Mac, you can encrypt information on removable media such as CDs, DVDs, and memory cards and require a password to decode it.

support.apple.com

Yes to both... just follow this ^. No need to erase the drives.

Whoops, I missed your link. Interesting! Will I need to type in the password each time my Mac uses something from one of those encrypted drives? I have plenty of things, like iTunes and Photo libraries on these drives. But even Safari & Mail downloads folders, etc.

So basically this is like a FileVault + Password, right?

What's weird is that for some partitions the option seems to be missing.

 

[Weaselboy]

The partitions will need to be a Mac format for this to work.

It is the same encryption used by FileVault.

The first time you reconnect one of these disks after they are encrypted, you will get a popup asking for the password. In the same popup box will be a checkmark where you can tell it to remember that password in Keychain. If you select that, you won't be asked for the password again on that Mac.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Okay, great. Thank you!

By the way, I activated FileVault for my main/boot drive earlier, which I later forgot and so I put my Mac to sleep. Do you think something bad might happen now? I hope it wasn't a mistake.

 

[KALLT]

By the way, I activated FileVault for my main/boot drive earlier, which I later forgot and so I put my Mac to sleep. Do you think something bad might happen now? I hope it wasn't a mistake.

Nope, not a problem. You can even turn the Mac off. The encryption pauses/resumes automatically.

 

[gnasher729]

What you could do:

- You will need a spare external drive

Angry downvote because right here you are already giving an answer that is pointlessly complicated. Use Weaselboy's answer. Hard drive encryption is built into MacOS and can be turned on or off very, very easily without any extra hardware, and without any extra tools.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

In the mean time I managed to encrypt one of my partitions through the Finder, but I'm having difficulties with the rest. After having chosen a password, I get an error message like "Disk could not be deactivated". This translation is most likely not quite right, because I can't really find anything like that when searching online.

Thus, I also can't look deeper into the issue. Do you guys know what this could be? It's basically one single external drive, split in several partitions.

Also: I don't remember which partition I already encrypted. Is there a way to check the status somewhere? Thanks!

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Still not working. I still get the same message. Very strange…

 

[Wando64]

It might be helpful if you explain which version of MacOS you are using and what format you have used for the drive you are encrypting. (APFS, Etc...) I might still not know the answer, but nobody can help without this info.

 

[chown33]

What's the partition scheme?

I think encryption requires GPT.

Encrypt and protect a storage device with a password in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on your Mac, protect sensitive information on a storage device by requiring users to enter a password to access its files.

support.apple.com

 

[Silly John Fatty]

It might be helpful if you explain which version of MacOS you are using and what format you have used for the drive you are encrypting. (APFS, Etc...) I might still not know the answer, but nobody can help without this info.

What's the partition scheme?

I think encryption requires GPT.

Encrypt and protect a storage device with a password in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on your Mac, protect sensitive information on a storage device by requiring users to enter a password to access its files.

support.apple.com

Ok, so I just managed to get back to this. It was a mess, I was encrypting the drives and thought I had done something wrong - I had plenty of photos being corrupted, etc., and then I realised it just took days to encrypt. So all's fine now.

But I wasn't able to encrypt all of my partitions.

I'm running Mac OS 10.13.6. I have three different drives: An SSD (internal), and HDD (internal) and an external HDD.

The SSD has APFS format and I managed to encrypt it. What I noticed however is that in Disk Utility that SSD is shown like in this pic:

That also applies to the other APFS drives/partitions by the way (which are not on the SSD). So I named this one Macintosh SSD as you can see, but what's Container disk1? For Macintosh SSD it says "APFS (encrypted)" but for the Container disk it says only "APFS". Is that normal?

My external HDD partitions are also APFS but I also have some that are "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". For some reason, the link to encrypt these is missing. Is that normal? How can I encrypt these partitions, or can I only encrypt APFS formatted partitions?

Thank you a lot!!

 

[Fishrrman]

My opinion only (take it for what it cost you):
Unless you REALLY have a good reason as to why you NEED encryption, it's better to NOT use it.
It could keep you from "getting to your files" in a moment of need...

 

[Silly John Fatty]

My opinion only (take it for what it cost you):
Unless you REALLY have a good reason as to why you NEED encryption, it's better to NOT use it.
It could keep you from "getting to your files" in a moment of need...

I'll never forget the password I used for encryption, so unless there's some other reasons than forgetting it that could keep me form getting my files, I think encryption is fine

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to encrypt "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" drives without deleting everything? I can't seem to find anything about it. And the "encrypt" option is missing when I right click the drive. :/

 

[Wando64]

I'll never forget the password I used for encryption, so unless there's some other reasons than forgetting it that could keep me form getting my files, I think encryption is fine

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to encrypt "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" drives without deleting everything? I can't seem to find anything about it. And the "encrypt" option is missing when I right click the drive. :/

Yes it should be possible to encrypt Mac OS Extended (Journaled) without deleting any of the data.
If the option to encrypt is not available to you then that is the problem that needs resolving.
I have a non encrypted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive attached to my mac right now and the option to encrypt is there just under "get info".
I am using Mojave, but the same is true of Catalina.

...pause...

I have just done some Googling and it would seem that the drive must be using a "GUID partition map" (which is the default partition scheme when you format a drive).
This thread might help (or not):

Can't encrypt external hard disk using Hi… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Yes it should be possible to encrypt Mac OS Extended (Journaled) without deleting any of the data.
If the option to encrypt is not available to you then that is the problem that needs resolving.
I have a non encrypted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive attached to my mac right now and the option to encrypt is there just under "get info".
I am using Mojave, but the same is true of Catalina.

...pause...

I have just done some Googling and it would seem that the drive must be using a "GUID partition map" (which is the default partition scheme when you format a drive).
This thread might help (or not):

Can't encrypt external hard disk using Hi… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

Thank you, it looks in fact like it has to be "GUID". I guess I'll have to erase those partitions, the problem is I don't have any space where to move all of this… very annoying! Still thank you for giving me the solution.