Mac Filevault

the_Grinch

We have a Macbook Air that we enabled Filevault on. Unfortunately, the person using it was let go and even though we have the recovery key it does not work. I read somewhere about a bug that changes the keyboard format and that this could be causing the issue. Now because of this I have been unable to reformat the drive so that we can use the laptop as a loaner. I attempted to use Boot and Nuke, but that was not successful. Any ideas on how I can format a Mac Filevault encrypted drive so I can reinstall the OS? I don't need the data, just want to be able to use the computer.

NotHackingYou

Looks like it might be something that is not encountered often: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4167098?start=0&tstart=0

I would probably try hooking it up to a Windows machine and using Disk Management. From there, I'd completely erase everything on the drive, format it as NTFS (knowing that the MAC will reformat it into Journaled), and put it back in the Mac, boot from CD and try again.

Or try:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4111158?start=0&tstart=0

the_Grinch

So I thought we tried this, but found out that if you boot into Recovery mode without the thumb drive you can erase the drive with disk utility. Boss found it this morning, thanks for the suggestions though!

NotHackingYou

Thanks for posting the resolution!