APFS driver on Mac with T2 chip from a bootcamp partition under Win 10

Hi All,

I have a new Mac which has a T2 security chip present but FileVault is turned off.
I have confirmed this using Terminal > diskutil apfs list. All software is up to date as at December 2019.

Is it the case that any Mac with a T2 chip is incompatible with the Paragon APFS driver?
Are there any plans to make your driver compatible with a T2 equipped Mac or is this (by design) impossible?

For background I am trying to enable access to the Partition containing MacOS (Catalina) from a bootcamp NTFS partition containing Win 10 on a new (Late 2019) MacBook Pro.

Any help with this configuration would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Steve Ratcliffe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SteveR

Hi All,

I have a new Mac which has a T2 security chip present but FileVault is turned off.
I have confirmed this using Terminal > diskutil apfs list. All software is up to date as at December 2019.

Is it the case that any Mac with a T2 chip is incompatible with the Paragon APFS driver?
Are there any plans to make your driver compatible with a T2 equipped Mac or is this (by design) impossible?

For background I am trying to enable access to the Partition containing MacOS (Catalina) from a bootcamp NTFS partition containing Win 10 on a new (Late 2019) MacBook Pro.

Any help with this configuration would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Steve Ratcliffe

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I have the exact same issue. I would say that the problem is the T2 chip based on the FAQ on this page https://www.paragon-software.com/home/apfs-windows/ that indicates the T2 chip is not yet supported. total bummer - I just upgraded from a 2014 MacBook Pro to the 2019 MBP. On my old Mac I was using the APFS software to seamlessly read/write from my APFS drive on the Mac partition from the NTFS Windows bootcamp partition. Now I just have one-way - I can read/write the NTFS bootcamp using Paragon software When I'm booted into the MacOS but I can't go the other way. heavy sigh.

I hope someone from Paragon can chime in if support for the T2 is coming soon or not.

I wouldn't hold your breath. APFS for Windows isn't really compatible with Catalina whether you have a T2 chip or not. I had problems when I upgraded to Catalina last year. After several weeks of emails to support, they told me it can read/write to external volumes created by Catalina, but "...APFS volume with MacOS User Data can't be mounted due to specifics of MacOS APFS container (where that User Data is located)" i.e. the typical Bootcamp situation. They said developers were aware of the limitation and were working on an update. That was last November and there has been no update. It's frustrating that they still state this is compatible with Catalina on the website, when it's actually pretty useless.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SeanyF

...APFS for Windows isn't really compatible with Catalina...

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Does the same go for HFS partitions? How does the OS have anything to do with the file system? In my case the files system was created by the disk utility in the installer software before Catalina was installed!

I am trying to use HFS+ for Windows to view an HFS partition on the same physical drive and doesn't work. All options in Disk Manager are greyed out. Another thread here said it was possibly due to Core Storage and some people had success when they disabled Core Storage but I don't know if they were on Catalina. I followed the instructions to disable Core Storage but the terminal command returned "No Core Storage logical volume groups found" so that's not the issue here. And no I don't have a hybrid Fusion Drive.

FileVault is never technically turned off on Macs with a T2. Everything is always encrypted. It's just that when FV is on, the user has the decryption key that the T2 will require to allow the volume to be mounted either on login or when mounting via TDM. When FV is off, the T2 uses its own (hidden) key and doesn't ask for it. This is why turning it on/off doesn't take any time.

Have we any updates to this hopeful feature of APFS for Windows support on an unencrypted FileVault volume with a T2 system? (I can confirm this worked perfectly in both read-only and read/write scenarios on my MBP before upgrading to a model with the T2 chip)

Thx~