Snippet: Yosemite Recovery Update 1.0 Issues ☍

Although I’m the weirdo with a USB drive with bootable OS X Yosemite and Mavericks installers on it, Thomas Reed found an issue where you might end up with a flashing question mark icon if you try to fix your Mac and it has a Firmware password and FileVault enabled. Fortunately, Apple has a simple solution:

1. Start up your Mac and press Command-R after you hear the startup sound to start your Mac from OS X Recovery.
2. Enter your firmware password when prompted.
3. After the Recovery window appears, choose Startup Disk from the Apple menu.
4. Select your normal startup disk (like "Macintosh HD") in the Startup Disk window.
5. Because the startup disk is encrypted with FileVault, you need to unlock it to select it for startup. Click the Unlock button in the lower right corner of the Startup Disk window .
6. Enter a user account password to unlock the drive. You can use any user account password that normally logs into this Mac at startup.
7. The Unlock button then changes to say Restart. Click this Restart button.
8. A prompt will appear asking “Are you sure you want to restart…” . When the prompt appears, click the Restart button that appears in this prompt.
9. After your Mac restarts, log in when prompted.

You shouldn't need to repeat these steps every time you start your Mac. After performing these steps once, you should be prompted at startup for a login password when your Mac has FileVault enabled or a firmware password set.