You’ve tried entering your password, but it doesn’t work. Should you try guessing? As that imposes increasing waiting times of up to 8 hours, maybe not. Try this instead.
FileVault
The T2 chip was designed for FileVault, and it comes at no cost to that and in Apple silicon Macs. Here’s how it works, and why everyone should enable it.
How to check secure boot, SIP, Gatekeeper/XProtect, its SSV, FileVault, macOS and its firmware, and XProtect Remediator scans.
Originally the ‘security enclave’, and subject of a series of patents, it was introduced in the iPhone 5s in 2013, then the T2 in 2017, and blossomed in M-series Macs from 2020.
Explains the sequence of events from Boot ROM to FileVault login, what storage is accessible at different times, and where the code is.
How to check your Mac is booting in Full Security, and how to read its log to verify all the key steps involved in that process.
How your password isn’t used to encrypt the Data volume on your Mac’s internal SSD, but is used to encrypt the key used for that encryption, and the benefits.
If you’ve got large files like Virtual Machines or media libraries on the Data volume on your Mac’s internal SSD, use this method to keep the size of its snapshots smaller.
A brief start with MFS for 400 KB floppies, followed by HFS intended for the first hard disks, upgraded to HFS+ in 1988, and followed in 2017 by APFS for all the OSes.
There’s extensive experience in recovering deleted files from hard disks, and results can be surprisingly good. Recovery from SSDs is more tricky, and secure ‘wiping’ ensures nothing can ever be recovered, making good backups essential.
The Eclectic Light Company 