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the form was an official Apple form for repairs. they are going to replace my keyboard and screen. they said they needed the password to test. I asked why not j

the form was an official Apple form for repairs. they are going to replace my keyboard and screen. they said they needed the password to test. I asked why not just boot from a USB drive and they said they could not do that. I didn't ask why they couldnt just swap a drive for testing. they didn't offer this option I had to suggest it but basically I'll have to reformat the drive before taking it in for service.

stephenr 9y ago
Create a separate account for them, and make sure you have FileVault turned on so your home folder is encrypted. I've managed to get this concept across to authorised repairers who don't speak english (and I don't speak Thai).
- Angostura 9y ago
  Exactly. Or just enable the guest account. That's what I always do.
  - stephenr 9y ago
    I assume they might want admin permissions honestly. Having said that, prior to my recent visit (failing mbp fan) my trips had always been for failing/failed discrete graphics (about 5 trips on 2 different generations of 17" mbp) so a reinstall is inevitable because making macOS work properly after a mainboard replacemnt is more work than reinstalling from scratch
    - gunsandnachos 9y ago
      It so easy to get admin rights on a Mac anyway. - Boot into single user mode... # mount -uw / # rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone # reboot Reboot the machine and it walks you through a re-run of setting up the OS X set up assistant, which allows creation of an admin account.
- lemoncucumber 9y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but unless you store your home folder on a separate encrypted partition (which would be really inconvenient), this won't work. FileVault 2 encrypts your entire boot volume, so there's no separate encryption of your home folder going on. If you give someone any of the passwords that unlock the boot volume, they could get all of the data off it (by using target disk mode or booting to single user mode, etc.)

stephenr 9y ago

Create a separate account for them, and make sure you have FileVault turned on so your home folder is encrypted. I've managed to get this concept across to authorised repairers who don't speak english (and I don't speak Thai).

Angostura 9y ago
Exactly. Or just enable the guest account. That's what I always do.
- stephenr 9y ago
  I assume they might want admin permissions honestly. Having said that, prior to my recent visit (failing mbp fan) my trips had always been for failing/failed discrete graphics (about 5 trips on 2 different generations of 17" mbp) so a reinstall is inevitable because making macOS work properly after a mainboard replacemnt is more work than reinstalling from scratch
  - gunsandnachos 9y ago
    It so easy to get admin rights on a Mac anyway. - Boot into single user mode... # mount -uw / # rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone # reboot Reboot the machine and it walks you through a re-run of setting up the OS X set up assistant, which allows creation of an admin account.
lemoncucumber 9y ago
I hate to break it to you, but unless you store your home folder on a separate encrypted partition (which would be really inconvenient), this won't work. FileVault 2 encrypts your entire boot volume, so there's no separate encryption of your home folder going on. If you give someone any of the passwords that unlock the boot volume, they could get all of the data off it (by using target disk mode or booting to single user mode, etc.)