OS X V10.6 Snow Leopard :: Password Protect Drive Using Disk Utility
Apr 8, 2012
I've got an external har drive that i've been using for the last 6 months as my time machine back-up. I've used the disk utility in the past to create an image and password protect my drive that way. But.is there a way i can use the same process for a drive that already has content on it? Can i password protect my drive using the disk utility which will password any current content as well as any future content?
I have used Disk Utility to attempt to password protect a folder but its not working for me. I go to FILE>NEW>DISK IMAGE FROM FOLDER I then highlight the folder I want to password protect and click the IMAGE button.In the window that pops up, I then select 128 bit encryption and leave image format on COMPRESSED.Then I enter and verify the password I want to place on the folder and hit OK.The resulting disk image appears to have been modified, but when I double click on the supposedly password secured folder, nothing happens. The folder doesn't open, nor does a window pop up asking for a password.I'm running snow leopard.
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.53Ghz Core Duo 500 GB HD
I figured out that using disk utility is the best method to create a password protected and hidden folder, but i can't seem to find clear instructions on how to do this. I'd like to be able to have a folder that's password protected and hidden if possible. I'd also like to be able to add files and delete files from that folder in the future as well.
Does anyone know how to password protect a folder without having to do it through disk utility? Id like to be able to just put a password on the folder I want, so that every time you try to open it, you require a password.
So my Mac froze for some reason, while my Kingston thumb/flash drive was in. I tried to eject it, but I could only force eject (which it said may cause issues). After that, whenever I put the thumb drive in, it said something like the drive won't work and I had to copy the files to my desktop. When I go into disk utility and click repair disk, it says this: "Disk Utility stopped repairing “UNTITLED 1”: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files." I can't erase the thumbdrive, because it says I need a source, which I don't know what that means.The files are useless now as I have transferred them to a CD, so I'm fine with erasing the whole thing.
I have an appointment to bring my iMac in tomorrow for service at an Apple store.I think all I need is for the inside of the front glass to be cleaned, and they told me I shouldn't need to leave it, but who knows.I just realized that I haven't ever brought any computer in for service in 20 years of owning them (I've been lucky, I guess).I want to do everything I can to protect my privacy.I've moved sensitive documents and information off both internal hard drives.I've emptied the trash.I've also cleared the history and cache on all three browsers I use.
I'm not going to go to the trouble to move all video files and pictures off my internal hard drives.It's way too much data.There is definitely stuff I consider private that I don't want others to look at, but I just can't see moving all of it.I'd love to password-protect the folders so nobody can get in them, but apparently that isn't possible (I don't want to go through creating encrypted disk images--again, way too much data).Is there anything else I should do to protect my privacy before I bring my computer in for service?Is there any easy way to password-protect folders and files? I went in Finder and locked one folder, but it still opens up with no problem, so that didn't help.I presume this is because I'm the only one who uses my computer and I don't require a password on startup.I also presume that such a password wouldn't prevent techs from looking at something if they were so inclined.
I'm not as worried about all of this as I would be if I were bringing the computer in to some independent servicer (instead of the Apple store where I'm bringing it).But I really don't like the idea that the techs will have access to everything on my hard drives while they are servicing my computer.
Running Disk Utility's Repair Disk function from DVD, how long should this take to complete with a 1 TB drive? It's been nearly 24 hours so far. I booted the computer from the DVD, and after verifying the disk was told the disk needed repair.
I am having problems with my Mac running slow. I had a friend guide me to run a "repair disk permission".I did that but I am not sure if I am to click clear history.Also should I do anything else to help my Mac run better?
My HDD died recently and I cannot get booted into OS X. It just hangs on the grey screen with the apple. I am (was) running 10.6.8
I am having a lot of trouble trying to boot from my install DVD. First of all I purchased a new HDD which came with Lion pre-installed on it. This worked fine, except when I tried to restore my latest time machine back up it used up 200GB of my disk space but nothing is restored? No doucments or music anywhere, photos, nothing. There is no change at all except half my storage has disappeared. I had posted another question on here and the reply said to use setup assistant, which I could not locate in Lion?I then tried to install Snow Leopard back over Lion but it would not let me. I tried to boot to the install disk but it just hung at the apple screen again.
I gave up and bought another brand new HDD but it won't recognise it on boot up. I just get a flashing folder with a ? in it. I tried to boot into the install DVD and again it wouldn't do it.
I then went back to my original HDD, and tried to boot to the install DVD from that (I hadn't tried this first off as my install disk was elsewhere and I purchased the Lion HDD as a stop gap measure) and it STILL wouldn't do it? This is now the original disk with the original install DVD (10.6) issued with my macbook pro when I purchased it and it will not boot to the DVD. Why why why?! It is almost enough to make me bin the lot and switch to windows.
My Macbook (late 2008 aluminum unibody running Snow Leopard 10.6.8) is having a plethora of problems - Spotlight won't return any results, I can't get any .dmg files to mount, and software updates can't be installed. Many of the solutions I've found involve running Disk Utility, but every time I try to open it, it crashes.
I often add very large files to my system before compressing them, sending them to clients, and then deleting them. This process leaves me constantly thinking about how much disk space I have free. Disk Utility, and an Apple approved app called DaisyDisk (space visualization) typically help me accompish this. Sadly, as of this week I seem to have a problem. When I went and looked the other day Disk U was telling me that 250gb of my 320gb drive is in use. This seemed high to me, but to be safe I thought I'd delete some files I didn't need. After deleting a bunch of videos, and a backup of my Main Identity (19gb) from my system, I'd assumed I had freed up about 24gb, but when I went back into Disk U it was still showing the same 250gb in use. Yes I rebooted my system, and made sure the trash was empty.
As I investigated further I did a get info on all 6 folders on the MacHD and they added up to about 170gb. That seemed more realistic, so I did a get info on my MacHD and again it showed the same thing 170 in use and 148.something available. Note: I have no partitions on this drive. But yet, still when I go to Disk U it seemed to be stuck at only 64gb free. Today when I went and looked again I am still seeing the same amount in use and free on the MacHD get info, but on Disk U now I am seeing 108 free and 211 in use. Why the difference? I would think Get Info was pulling from the same place as the mac disk utility.
I want to run Disk utilities on my mac. Have done this before using system disk and holding C etc.Since upgrading to Snow Leopard from Leopard it no longer sees my system disk.Restart holding down C with system disk installed...and mac just boots-up normally!Ultimately I want to run the disk utility to check that the Hard Drive is healthy after install.
Info: PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2x3 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
on doing a disk utilities scan it came up with this - "Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map" why won't it let me repair this problem?
I recently replaced Leopard 10.5 with a clean installation (not an upgrade) of Snow Leopard 10A432 (SL) on my Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook (aluminum, 2GB RAM). Under Leopard 10.5 I was able to use Disk Utility (DU) to dynamically re-size existing volumes on USB hard drives. But under SL I am unable to do so. While I am able to replace all existing partitions on a USB drive with a new set of partitions and resize them prior to their creation by dragging the slider bars, once created, DU will not let me dynamically resize the new partitions. Doing so was easy with DU under 10.5. For example, after I re-partitioned a USB drive with DU under SL and created 2 partitions, I was able to make the top partition smaller by dragging the bottom edge upward from the lower right corner, but there seems to be no way (and no slider bars) to adjust the size of the lower partition to use the space freed by having made the upper partition smaller. In fact, although the upper partition reports a smaller size, when clicked on, the border around the upper partition still includes the range defined by its initial, larger size. There also seems to be now way (no slider bars) at the top edge of partitions that would allow them to be expanded/contracted from the top down. Has anyone else encountered these issues? Any thoughts/suggestions as to how to resolve them? Are these known issues? I have searched but not come across it as yet.
I recently realized that I no longer have the Startup Disk preference pane in the Preference Panel. I sometimes boot from other drives and now I'm forced to hold down the option key at restart or startup instead of being able to select the startup drive through the Startup Disk pane.
MacMini 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM Mac OS X 10.6.8
In order to use Lion’s encrypted (Core Storage) external drive feature, I needed to reformat an external 1TB drive with Apple Partition Map, as that works only with GPT. The only partition was HFS+J formatted and was used as Time Machine Backup, which I wanted to preserve.
Act I:
I connected the drive to another iMac running 10.6 which happened to have enough space on the internal HD. I read this article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096 , which describes how to copy the BackupDB just by drag and drop. In hindsight, that was a bad idea, I should have created a disk image like suggested elsewhere, but if Apple itself suggests it, it can’t be so bad right?
So I just dragged the whole BackupDB to random folder on the iMac (after enabling ownership), and apparently it copied correctly the dir-hardlinks, as the resulting folder had the same size.
It seems that the Finder activates a special dir-hardlink aware copying mode when one does this. This is also confirmed by the fact that the Finder will refuse to copy the BackupDB together with other files, you have to drag and drop the BackupDB only.
Act II:
I reformatted the external drive as HFS+J with GPT and activated ownership.. But now, when I try to copy the BackupDB back, it continues to count indefinitely the number of files to copy! I speculate that the special dir-hardlink aware mode is not activated, but what can I do? How can I trigger it? Is there some hidden command line tool which handles this?
The lesson I’m drawing from this is: use the method described in the article only if you copy the backupDB from your old to your new drive.
I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro to Snow leopard. About 4 days later, my Mac crashed. When I tried to restart, it came up with the grey screen with apple logo and spinning disc. I have tried all of the resets. I then decided to try and re-boot from the SL install disk. When it asked me to choose a destination volume, however, there was none available. I tried disk utility, but there was no disk available there either. I then went back and tried to use the original install disc that came with the Mac...same results. It appears that my internal hard disk has disappeared. I wonder if i am going to have to replace the hard drive?
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I've been having trouble backing up my MacBook Pro to my Time Capsule (hasn't backed up in months) so I ran Disk Utility and it gave the following error:Disk Utility stopped verifying "Hard Disk". This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disc), and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk.So, if I do that, will I end up losing whatever is on my hard disk? And how do I start up the computer using the OS X disk? Just put it in and restart?
I am using an external hard drive that is connected via USB 2.0 to my Airport Extreme to back up using Time Machine. In order to get Time Machine to recognize the hard drive in question, however, I had to mount it as a drive on the network. Can I put a password on the hard drive that is separate from my network's password? What I want is a situation in which people can get onto my network using a password but CANNOT access the Time Machine backup hard drive.
I am getting errors when I attempt to burn my back-up Snow Leopard .dmg in Toast 10 or Disk Utility. Is my superdrive faulty? Here are my error messages.
1. To grab all the files I need/don't want to lose (photos, music, documents, etc.)2. Then completely erase the 500GB HD so I can then install it into the new Macbook Pro and install Leopard.(I'll then externally connect the 160GB HD that came w/ my Macbook Pro and add the files I've already copied into that 160GB HD into the 500GB Leopard installed HD in the new Macbook Pro)So, currently my 500GB HD is connected to my Macbook pro and I want to completely erase everything so I'll then have a completely clean hard drive, to then install into the Macbook Pro, add the installation discs and install Leopard into the 500GB HD.
I've been searching here and on google to no avail. Here's my dilemma:
I'm a teacher. I use OS X at home and Win XP at work. I have a USB drive that contains all my materials. I want to password protect it, so that if i forget it somewhere, students will not be able to see final exams/tests etc. I am not an admin at work and the IT dept will not install any programs on my work PC. I want to be able to access these files at home also.
