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Locked Out Of an Encrypted External Drive

I forgot the password to an external drive I encrypted with ML which has rendered it unusable. I don’t care about the contents, I simply want to wipe the drive so I can use it. But every time I plug in to try and do so, it asks for a password. So is it possible to somehow bypass the password and have it show in disk utility so I can wipe out or is there some other alternative method or am I out of luck here and can no longer use the drive?
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Bryan

Comments: 4 Responses to “Locked Out Of an Encrypted External Drive”

    11 years ago

    I know what you mean. You can't do it in Disk Utility. Not sure why -- probably just an oversight. The "Erase" button is grayed out when it shouldn't be.
    Anyway, the Terminal to the rescue. This command lists the drives:
    > diskutil cs list
    So look for the external drive and get its Logical Volume Group ID. It is a weird long string of characters.
    Then use that string in the next command:
    > diskutil cs delete VOLUMEGROUPID
    That does it. Just tested it myself. The only problem is the danger of using the wrong volume ID. So check and double check.

    Bryan
    11 years ago

    Okay, I followed your steps. I pasted the "Logical Volume Group ID" after the command "diskutil cs delete VOLUMEGROUPID" and this is what I got...
    Usage: diskutil coreStorage delete lvgUUID
    Delete a CoreStorage logical volume group. All logical volumes will be removed.
    Ownership of the affected disk is required....

    I tried it a couple of times but always the same thing and I still cannot access the disk. Am I following the correct procedure?

      11 years ago

      Are you replacing VOLUMEGROUPID with your volume group id? So the command is "diskutil cs delete" followed by a space, followed by your long volume group id string.

    Joseph Allen
    11 years ago

    I think Gary has given us toooo much power with this command. Contact with a 3rd party should be required for such an action. This would provide an audit trail in cases of vandalism.

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