[FifiGogo]

Hi all,

I have a 2008 macbook which recently suffered an electrical surge due to inconsistant power supplies (I was in africa) - the logic board subsequently died. In my infinite wisdom I had turned on FileVault before said surging and death, and now that my harddisk (apparently still salvagable) has been transplanted into a similar era macbook I have managed to forget the password.

I was looking through the forums and I stumbled across this:

http://forums.macnn.com/90/mac-os-x/...root-password/

Which is rather similar (I think) to my problem - only difference is I'm a borderline luddite and know very, very little about the inner workings of my (once majestic) mac. I was wondering if this could work for my computer (someone in the above forum mentioned it probably wouldn't work for them because their password was unlikely to have been in a dictionary file - I'm one to make up passwords myself so I doubt mine would have either - but then again I don't really know what a dictionary file is). I am hopelessly lost and I would really love to retrieve my data - is there any way of doing this without what the guys at my local mac store are calling a "last resort" reset?

I appeal to you the geniuses (genii?) from my humble position as a faithful but clueless mac enthusiast...

Thank you!
Fifi

[ibook_steve]

Filevault is completely different from what's being discussed in that 10 year old thread. You can't use that information.

If you don't know the password, don't know the master password, and don't have a Time Machine backup (which you should), I think you're stuck.

Sorry.

[FifiGogo]

Hey ibook Steve,

Thanks for your response - happily I stumbled upon it by trying all kinds of combinations, so it's no longer an issue - but it is a little disturbing that I was on completely the wrong track anyway. I have so much to learn! Thanks again for helping a poor clueless soul!

Cheers,

Fiona

[tightsocks]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve 

If you don't know the password, don't know the master password, and don't have a Time Machine backup (which you should), I think you're stuck.

Supposedly, there are utilities out there which purport to be able to recover a File Vault password.

I have no idea how to go about using them... It would be nice if they were more user friendly for the average user who happens to forget his password.

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