Big Sur update no access to Macintosh HD (in recovery mode)

Have you been able to solve it?
I am in the exact same boat.
The guys at iboysoft have software that is able to accept my password to unlock access to the drive! I entered the same admin password which Mac refuses to take for the startup disk.
Some more links:
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/656796
Let me know if you find something that works.

I have also been able to change this access password via diskutil afps command! The Mac still won't take it even though iboysoft utility recognizes the change.

So, it seems like I found the solution to recover the data.
Look up UFS Explorer Professional Recovery. It is able to access my locked drive using the password I know.

@Kirill_L I really hope UFS Explorer Professional Recovery will do the job for you! Right now, I handed my Mac in to an apple distributor with a lab here in Norway. It is ridiculous that I will be charged quite a bit for that but in that regard, I can not give the software a try for now.

Btw, please let me know if UFS Explorer Professional Recovery worked for you :) Did you use it in Target disk mode from another mac?

I've been digging for solution for over 48 hours now...
So the way I understand this correctly - the hard drive got locked and encrypted somewhere in the process of the update. This isn't really a new issue to Mac OS, it has happened before.
There is a way to unlock the hard drive and possibly to decrypt it, this will allow data recovery but I am not sure if it'll allow to install onto that drive without wiping it (I haven't gotten to that point yet.)

The essence of the process is that you have to unlock and decrypt the hard drive but for me that has only been possible through a Terminal in recovery mode. Since your hard drive is inaccessible - you will have to get an external drive and use it to enter Recovery Mode.

Here is what worked for me (partially):

• Install Big Sur onto an external drive. (I also had another drive with a TM back up from a while back hooked up to the MacBook)

• When you turn your computer on - keep an Option key pressed. This launches the Startup Manager. Select your external drive to boot from (I selected the TM drive but I think the one with the OS would work as well - perhaps you could even use an empty drive). When the computer restarts - hold CMD + R for recovery mode.

• Now in recovery mode long the top of the screen go to utilities and select Terminal.

• Then follow this instructions from here: http s://derflounder.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/unlock-or-decrypt-your-filevault-encrypted-boot-drive-from-the-command-line-on-macos-mojave/

• I was able to unlock the hard drive and start the decryption process.

Some mistakes that I have done during the process:

• Wait for decryption to complete. Mine was stuck for a while at 10% without moving so I terminated the process with intention to restart it but it isn't that easy. I am not sure at all whether it would have finished itself or not. I would still recommend being more patient than I was. Now I need to resolve this issue. Perhaps this will help but, I haven't tried it yet:

https://ww w.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/ak611m/enabledfilevaultbootdrivenotavailableon/
Maybe this in Recovery Mode Terminal:
htt p://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/managing-mavericks-filevault-2-with- fdesetup/
Or even this:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6602802?answerId=26913486022#26913486022

So now I am stuck on recovering data from that hard drive with a 3rd party software - it wasn't UFS Explorer Professional Recovery ( that's $600), neither I have tried iBoysoft (another $90) - both of these read the data from the decrypted hard drive when I provided my password - but the software to which I already had access - Stellar Data Recovery Technician.
I will try to restart the decryption process but only once the data recovery is complete which at this rate will be several days...

Another ridiculous part is that when I boot into that external hard drive with Big Sur I can change the access password to that hard drive in the Terminal there, but not unlock or decrypt it...

I am sorry to hear this will cost you a lot of money... So far for me it has been my time...

Good luck!

@Kirill_L thank you so much for sharing the effort! Right now, my mac is at an ASP (authorised service partner), they tried pretty much the same stuff as I did earlier and now told me that the T2 chip in the logic board is defect and has to be replaced. Now the mac is only accessible in target disk mode.

I guess I'm picking it up and go through your recommendations. They seem not too eager to actually fix the problem. What I heard from a service centre in Denmark was that there are several cases of the same issue without any solution.

Btw, is there any way to pull the file vault 2 recovery key from the icloud?

I have been able to recover data and unlock the drive.
I will describe the solution that worked for me later today.

So here is the problem I faced and how I solved it.
I have an early 2015 13 Inch MBP, I decided to install Big Sur, download went fine and somewhere during the install something went wrong. Also, important to note - I did not have File Vault enabled on my hard drive.
The install would break somewhere around 24-25th minute, I could not continue - the computer was asking me for my login, would accept it but then restart and continue in this loop.
None of the combinations listed here (https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201255) did anything.

• D or Option+D finished in in error -2002D or -2002F.

• Safe mode didn't boot.

• Option key didn't allow any options to be selected.

• NVRAM/SCM reset had no effect.

• Single User/Verbose mode did not work either.

• Recovery mode didn't not start correctly - there was no proper screen to select options for the recovery, no disk utility, no terminal. Just an option to unlock my Macintosh HD but the password that worked on the login screen but did not work here. The option to unlock the hard drive via Apple ID did not work even though MBP communicated properly and I was getting notifications on other devices.

• I have not tried the Target disk mode so I cannot speak regarding the effectiveness of that option.

My understanding of what happened is this:

• Somewhere during the install the drive got locked and for whatever reason encrypted as well, also for whatever reason the password that is used to log in didn't work to unlock the drive. So in essence you are stuck with an unusable drive and nothing can proceed. I suspect that the reason why no startup combinations worked is that there was just nothing to work with if there is no hard drive that's readable.

Solutions I have tried but which didn't work:

• When entering the password in the recovery mode - try making sure it's in the same keyboard layout that you have been entering the password for the login. The default is ABC layout, which generally corresponds to US layout however, nevertheless - worth a try.

• This (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6602802?answerId=26913486022#26913486022) didn't work for me.

Here is what worked:

• You have to get the Mac into a proper recovery mode with all the tools - specifically the Terminal. As I have described earlier - booting an OS from external hard drive did not allow me to unlock and decrypt the hard drive. It did allow me to use 3rd party tools which could recover data from my locked/encrypted hard drive - however I found that process to be long and painful, I was going to use it as a last resort but found a simpler solution and therefore didn't have to use 3rd party tools.

• To get a Mac into a proper Recovery mode with internal hard drive inaccessible I used an external hard drive and a bootable USB with Big Sur on it. It probably doesn't have to be Big Sur but I believe that an external hard drive is essential. I think the OS needs to see that it has a place to put this new operating system in.

• Once you get into proper Recovery mode you can try unlocking the hard drive using Disk Utility - however that didn't work for me - I had to do it from the terminal.

• Find the Terminal in Utilities along the upper edge of the screen and follow the instructions here (enter your login password, mine worked):

https:// derflounder.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/unlock-or-decrypt-your-filevault-encrypted-boot-drive-from-the-command-line-on-macos-mojave/

• You need to unlock the drive and decrypt it. DO NOT, I say again, DO NOT interrupt the the decryption process - mine took 24 hours to complete. In another Terminal window enter the 'caffeinate' command and keep the power plugged in. Restarting the decryption process was not easy.

• Once decryption was completed I had full access to my hard drive, I backed it up and re-installed Big Sur without any issues.

A note on the decryption process. Restarting it from terminal is possible, however you need access to the apfsd or fdesetup commands and those were nowhere to be found in the Recovery Mode which I was in. It could be different on other machines, I do not know.
Here is some more info on that:

• https:// derflounder.wordpress.com/2019/10/17/managing-macos-catalinas-filevault-2-with-fdesetup/

• https://www .reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/ak611m/enabledfilevaultbootdrivenotavailableon/

• https://www .tonymacx86.com/threads/apfs-and-filevault-encryption-paused.261546/

The last two links are related to hackintosh, or Mac OS installed on Windows machines - they require a Clover bootable USB which seems to have drivers for the above-mentioned commands, however I have not been able to utilize this method, it was over my head. What saved me was the fact that instead of a bootable USB I was using a hard drive with a Time Machine back up and it is through those backups I had access to apfsd command.

Good luck!

I had also the same challenge. Recovery mode - Instead to boot from external USB Drive or OS, i just unmounted the apfs Volume / Macintosh HD and then unlocked (apfs_unlockfv) and mounted the whole disk (/dev/disks1).

After that i was able to access to all related folders and files. Hope this will helps other.

Double post

Hi Kirill_L,

first of all, thank you for this comprehensive guide for a solution to a problem that apparently is very rare (at least according to my two hours research I put in).

I tried to follow it, but I am stuck trying to get my device to boot into the "normal" recovery mode.

When you turn your computer on - keep an Option key pressed. This launches the Startup Manager. Select your external drive to boot from (I selected the TM drive but I think the one with the OS would work as well - perhaps you could even use an empty drive). When the computer restarts - hold CMD + R for recovery mode.

This step does not work for me, I always end up with the screen that asks me to put in a password to unlock the hard drive.
In fact, I am not even able to force it into a proper restart (with a startup chime) after choosing the external drive with a clean install of Big Sur on it.

My current setup is:
Macbook Air (13-inch 2017)
Internal HD (locked and encrypted) with Big Sur installed
External HD connected via USB with Big Sur installed (mountable and bootable)
External HD connected via USB that's empty

I also tried other combinations such as:
External HD connected via USB with Big Sur Installer on it (mountable and bootable)
External HD connected via USB that's empty

External HD connected via USB with Big Sur Installer on it (mountable and bootable)
External HD connected via USB with Big Sur installed (mountable and bootable)

External HD connected via USB with Big Sur installed (mountable and bootable)
External HD connected via USB with a random TM backup

with none of them delivering the desired result. Is there anything I'm missing?

Hi Kirill_L,

I am also using a Early 2015 Macbook Pro Retina with EXACTLY the same issue. Unfortunately, I get stuck like chehggy and the Big Sur Recovery Mode booted from the USB still asks for a user password or apple ID which it then fails to recognize as the correct password. I tried booting from a USB with Catalina and that simply gives me a white cross sign after the apple logo.

I have realized that when booting into Internet Recovery Mode (Shift - Cmd - R), I get an old OS X version of recovery mode which works without password. Unfortunately I cannot use Terminal to decrypt the drive as that version of Recovery mode is too old to support FileVault and AFPS encryption, it is of the time of older HFS file systems. This means there is no "diskutil apfs unlockVolume" command in Terminal Disk Utility.

Is there any way to dencrypt the drive from this Recovery Mode or any other solution to access the files on the drive ?

I have the exact problem. How did you fix it?