It is a slightly peculiar scenario as I acquired locked out of my very own laptop computer. Bear in mind I am in IT so I do know what I am doing.
The setup:
I personal a Macbook Professional 2019 with T2 (with buy paperwork and so forth). I do not use iCloud in any respect, by no means set it up, ever.
- (basic)Filevault 2 was off. (or no less than I by no means enabled it)
- No firmware password.
- T2 safety was set to none and permit booting from USB. (I can boot
Home windows, Linux simply tremendous)
It is my machine so no safety was wanted.
I’ve an admin account on it I do know what the password is 100%.
The issue:
I used Migration Assistant to import some previous consumer from an older mac. Encountered a bug the place I could not delete the consumer fully (it is an obscure bug with customers created in Excessive Sierra) https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8087348?sortBy=finest
Rebooted and now Mac is in a reboot loop.
What does not work:
- I can maintain Possibility (Alt) to see the drive and attempt to boot from it.
(tries in addition restarts) - I can maintain Cmd + R to attempt to get into Restoration. (tries in addition
restarts) - I can maintain obtain Web Restoration. (tries in addition restarts)
What works:
I can put the Macbook Professional in DFU mode and tried to Revive. It really works however has identical signs. I do not wish to Restore and Erase it, i feel that might give me again the machine however trash the important thing on T2 shedding the information. What’s on it has sufficient sentimental worth for me to only shelf the mac and watch for an answer.
I can maintain Possibility (Alt) and boot Home windows setup, any linux distro (nixos…) and so forth however they’ve restricted assist for T2.
I can boot into Goal Disk Mode and with my different Mac connect with it asks for a password (none of my recognized passwords work). (I can entry a part of the drive just like the EFI partition, Restoration and Preboot quantity are unecypted)
Apparently T2 permits encryption on the OS and Knowledge volumes on a regular basis, ‘diskutil record’ exhibits then as Encrypted No (encrypted at relaxation) and now cannot boot and unlock the drive despite the fact that it was operating tremendous earlier than I restarted.
Conclusion:
Scraping within the Preboot quantity which mounts as Learn Solely I discovered some information. The consumer i used to be attempting to import has turn out to be the one consumer that may decrypt the drive with an “admin” password. With the consumer partially gone I am pondering it has some downside decrypting the OS and Knowledge Volumes. Someway Preboot is not in sync with the precise setup.
My household knowledge is there I am unable to get to it.
Concepts on what to attempt? From what I collect T2 ought to unlock the drive on boot, I believe it tries, fails and resets.
