Mount an external hard drive in single user mode

Do any know how to mount an external hard drive in single user mode:
I've issue the following command:
/sbin/mount -uw /
mkdir /Volumes/ex1
/sbin/mount_hfs /dev/disk2s3 /Volumes/ex1
(I've checked my external hard drive using df -k showing the device is disk2s3)
Result:
Permission denied

Hi leung wai,
   I wouldn't mind knowing the answer myself. I think the problem with doing it in the manner you attempted is that the device tree hasn't been created yet so the mount command is certainly not going to work. I assume that the answer is to start up enough of the system to have the device tree created. Unfortunately, I don't know where in the startup process that occurs. You could try the following command after making the boot volume writable:
/usr/libexec/registermach_bootstrapservers /etc/mach_init.d
Then check to see if the /dev virtual filesystem has been created. Of course it wouldn't surprise me if that didn't also mount your disks. If not, try the following:
/sbin/SystemStarter
It should have been created after that because at that point almost the whole system has started.
Gary
~~~~
   You've been telling me to relax all the way here, and
   now you're telling me just to be myself?
         -- The Return of the Secaucus Seven

Similar Messages

Mount external Hard drive in Single user mode

Do any know how to mount an external hard drive in single user mode:
I've issue the following command:
/sbin/mount -uw /
mkdir /Volumes/ex1
/sbin/mount_hfs /dev/disk2s3 /Volumes/ex1
(I've checked my external hard drive using df -k showing the device is disk2s3)
Result:
Permission denied

I seem to remember the "Permission denied" or "Device busy" coming up in some situations but not others when attempting to mount drives at this early stage in "single user" mode...
It might be worth trying to run:<pre>sh /etc/rc</pre>This is actually present among the "Tiger" messages in "Single User" mode, as the procedure to continue booting but remaining in "single user" mode. Indeed, it seems to start up the usual "services" like starting disk arbitration (so you can eg. use 'diskutil' to repair permissions, or loading "NetInfo" so you don't need to work in '-raw' mode - in the past, people had posted complicated procedures for doing these things manually.
After running the 'rc' script, try creating your mount point and and running 'mount_hfs' as usual...

Mounting a usb hard drive in single user mode

I've gotten as far as connecting the hard drive at boot, but I don't know how to figure out which dev is the hard drive, and which arguments to use with the mount command. I can't do much when I login, and I'm trying to cp files from my hard drive to my external hard drive through single user mode.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Hi leung wai,
   I wouldn't mind knowing the answer myself. I think the problem with doing it in the manner you attempted is that the device tree hasn't been created yet so the mount command is certainly not going to work. I assume that the answer is to start up enough of the system to have the device tree created. Unfortunately, I don't know where in the startup process that occurs. You could try the following command after making the boot volume writable:
/usr/libexec/registermach_bootstrapservers /etc/mach_init.d
Then check to see if the /dev virtual filesystem has been created. Of course it wouldn't surprise me if that didn't also mount your disks. If not, try the following:
/sbin/SystemStarter
It should have been created after that because at that point almost the whole system has started.
Gary
~~~~
   You've been telling me to relax all the way here, and
   now you're telling me just to be myself?
         -- The Return of the Secaucus Seven

How do i repair my hard drive in single user mode when disk is full?

Hi there Apple Community!
I have an old Macbook Pro 17" with an upgraded 500GB harddrive and 4GB memory. I'm running Mac OSX Lion.
Was hoping you could help me out. THis is the situation:
Long story short I spilt wine on my macbook and the screen went a bit blobby. Switched it off for a few days, removed the battery etc. etc. Opened it up cleaned out as much of the wine as possible, but unfortunately some of it came in behind the LCD, so now the screen has a nice red stain. Obviously I'm not going to try to clean that out of the LCD.
My Macbook Pro still worked for a few days after that, but then my harddrive gave up. I booted in the Recovery HD menu, verified the drive and I got the error "Keys out of order - This disk needs to be repaired, click Repair Disk." I attempted to repair the disk but got the error "Keys out of order - Disk Full Error - The volume could not be repaired".
Unfortnately of this 500GB I only have about 7GB free on it, as I have a huge iPhoto and iTunes library. I did make a TIme Machine backup of my user directory, but not the system files. I don't really want to do a clean install because:
1) I'm paranoid that there's something I did not fully back up
2) I don't want to have to download the whole Mac OSX Lion again. I should have made a USB bootable backup when I had the chance. I don't have access to a broadband connection.
What I feel are my viable options, are as follows:
1) I did buy a replacement internal 500GB harddrive, so I can probably try to make an image of the hard drive to this new drive, but not sure how. I believe it's through the Disk Utility with the "New Image" option but not sure how to go from there.
2) Start up in Single User Mode and delete some unnecessary files and re-attempt to run the fschk -fy utility again (I tried this earlier and got the same Disk Full Error). - the problem with this is, I'm not familiar with the command line and have no clue how to delete files. I don't know my way around Unix.
3) I can also probably attempt to make a Ghost Image or Acronis Image of the failed drive to this new drive, but not sure if Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image will be able to read this HFS drive - I believe it's possible as it's a simple hard drive clone.
If you can guide me in the best option - probably there is a better solution than my proposed ones above, I appreciate any feedback and comments you might have!

hi Baltwo,
So I ended up copying my user folder to another harddrive. I managed to download the whole osx lion again, reinstalled, and recovered my home folder using this discussion:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428
I have managed to get all my files back. My iTunes library works fine, but my iPhoto library when I open it, get the following error:
iPhoto cannot be opened because of a problem.
Here's the error log
Process:         iPhoto [1540]
Path:            /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Identifier:      com.apple.iPhoto
Version:         8.1.2 (8.1.2)
Build Info:      iPhotoProject-4240000~8
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [209]
Date/Time:       2012-09-19 19:56:45.528 +0200
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.7.4 (11E53)
Report Version: 9
Sleep/Wake UUID: 7948ABE2-5294-4F87-B6E3-777095A2F2EE
Interval Since Last Report:          4780 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           9
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   9
Anonymous UUID:                      70117D38-03EA-4F9C-B810-50B743864B9E
Crashed Thread: 0
Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Application Specific Information:
dyld: launch, loading dependent libraries
Dyld Error Message:
Library not loaded: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iLifeSlideshow.framework/Versions/A/iLifeSlid eshow
Referenced from: /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Reason: image not found
I've done an Apple Software Update but it didn't find an update for iPhoto.
One thing to note is, this library was originally created on iLife 08, upgraded to '09 and it stayed on that version. It hasn't een upgraded to iLife '11. It worked fine on my previous install of OSX Lion. How do I recover the library without upgrading to '11 ?

Format Hard Drive in Single User Mode

Hi All-
I'm having some issues with my MacBook with a bad B-Tree. I've read a lot about how to use DiskWarrior to repair it. I'm not really interested in recovering my data, but I would like to install OS X.
Those who've had a catalog issue or B-tree issue knows that fsck doesn't repair it.
I'm having an issue with the Disk Utility on the start up disk. It's having trouble reading the disk and hangs at "Gathering disk information". I would like to boot into single user more and repartition the disk, I just don't know how.
I have not had any success in finding my answer on the web, and am hoping that you can help out.
Thanks!
john

John,
Disk Utility is also available at the command line. Open Terminal and type:
<pre style="overflow:auto; font-family: 'Monaco'; font-size: 10px">man diskutil</pre>
then press <RETURN> to view the man pages. I suggest that you give those man pages a good read, then come back here if you have further questions. If you cannot get to the man pages (if you don't have a working installation of OS X), I could give you a specific command to run, but I'll need to know absolutely everything about what results you want (just "repartition" is WAY too vague).
Also, you might want to give Disk Utility another try, and give it plenty of time to handle the broken file system. Sometimes, a broken file system will become available for formatting, but only after an extended period of time (several minutes to an hour).
Scott

My MacBook Pro won't let me mount my external Hard Drive. Just trying to restore my iTunes library.

My MacBook Pro, less than a year old, started acting weird. I backed everything up, took it in to Best Buy, who sent it out to Apple Repair and they put in a new motherboard.
It's running on Mac OS X Version 10.7.4
Now I am trying to put everything back on the computer from my external Maxtor 80GB Hard Drive. MacBook Pro won't recognize the external drive.
I tried Disk Utility. I can see the external drive, and did a repair disk and verify disk. Several times. Each time it says "This partition map seems to be ok."
However, I am not able to mount it, as that option is greyed out and i can't select it.
Also, under the Icon for the external hard drive, it has the Macintosh HD Icon (essentially my computer). I tried to restore this way, didn't work.
I need this to mount, as it has all of my itunes stuff on it; dozens of my sons movies, and my entire iTunes library.
PLEASE HEEEEELP!! HOW CAN I MOUNT THIS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE? Thank you in advance

Try things in this USB/Firewire faq.
DALE

Laptop no longer can mount my external hard drive

After updating to Mavericks, my laptop no longer can mount my external hard drive. What on earth is going on here and how can I fix this?

The drive is spinning and I was using it the night before I updated my macbook. It is viewable in disk utility but not in finder, and attempts to mount it are thwarted. The problem is literally coincident with updating the mavericks. When I click verify it didn't appear to have any problems but I will retry when I am back at home and report the findings.
It is a Toshiba 1GB external hard drive and has adequate power. Lights are on, etc.
I have not checked on another computer as do not have one available, but that will be my next step.

I mounted my external hard drive to a pc and now I don't have edit or write permissions on my Mac (read only). How do I get them back without erasing the drive?

Hello all, I am a photographer and have my portfolio, edited and raw images backed up on a Seagate Free Agent External Hardrive. I mounted my external hard drive to a pc recently and now I don't have edit or write permissions to it on my Mac (read only). How do I get them back without erasing the drive and loosing my valuable work?

If you re-format it you will lose all the data on it!!!!! So make sure you have backed up the drive or moved all the data on it to another external HD or the internal HD on your iMac.
Below is an Apple Advice letter that explains how to format an external HD, it's written for Aperture but you can use the instructions to formate any external HD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3509

Mounting devices as drives in single-user mode

i am having a problem with a computer that won't start up into mac osx and i am wondering about mounting an external hard drive that shows up under /dev/ but not /volumes/. i am trying to back up some files using the tar command, but i need a drive available first before i can do so. thanks in advance for any replies!

Gary,
THANK YOU!!!
The "diskutil disableJournal /" command worked and allowed me to FINALLY mount the disk via target mode. I successfully backed up my most important files. As of now, I don't know why this has worked, despite the read-only status of the disk, but it has. Once I typed the command and hit enter, I heard the hard drive spinning and doing some work for about 15 seconds. After that, nothing happened and, for some reason, I decided to force a shut down, restart the mac in target mode, and see what happened. However, I tried trashing some stuff, which locked up both computers, but I am trying the command again and being more patient with the it to see if I can do some more back up work. Even if that was a short-lived fix, it was long enough for me to back up my honors thesis, which I worked on for two years and counting. I have been working on this problem to no avail (off and on) for the past two months, so to finally see some progress has been pretty nice (understatement). whew! yeah!
again, thanks!
neal
P.S., i will do some diagnostic stuff on the disk after i attempt another disabling of journaling (fsck or the tiger dvd diskutility app). I'll keep you posted.

Can I mount my external hard drive which will be compatible with both Mac and Windows?

Hello,
Can I mount my external hard drive which will be compatible with both Mac and Windows? If yes, then please let me know, because I intend to use my hard drive for both Windows and Mac, without losing any file.

Yes. By default, Mac OS X and Windows can read and write drives which are formatted as FAT32 or exFAT; NTFS drives aren't writable from Mac OS X without additional software.
(124553)

Mounting external drives in single-user mode?

Sigh. What were the odds of the HD on my month-old MacBook Pro and the HD on my somewhat older one (which was filling in for the moment as a backup) failing on the same night? Pretty low, I'm guessing, but that's what has happened. The Genius Bar has confirmed that the new drive is completely toast, and Apple is replacing it now, but of course they can't salvage the data. As for the old drive, while it won't boot and isn't visible to other machines in target disk mode, I am able to mount it in single-user mode and even view text files. What I can't seem to do is mount my external FireWire/USB2 drive so that I can try actually copying the files off.
I've re-read the man page for "mount" in hopes of discovering the correct incantation, but so far it has eluded me. I've been trying things like "/sbin/mount -w /dev/disk1 /Volumes" and "/sbin/mount -w /dev/disk1 /Volumes/rescue", which return "Permission denied" and "No such file or directory" respectively...not sure that's the right device, but finding an acceptable mount point seems to be an issue regardless. Hoping someone can point me in the right direction, and thanks for reading.

Thanks, macbig...no joy yet, but definitely a helpful link.
I've confirmed via System Profiler on laptop #3 that my external USB drive is formatted as MS-DOS FAT32, so mount_msdos seems like the right utility to use. (The drive shows up there as /dev/disk1s1.) Meanwhile, "ls /dev/disk*" on the problem machine returns the following:
/dev/disk0 /dev/disk0s1 /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk1 /dev/disk1s1 /dev/disk1s2 /dev/disk1s3 /dev/disk2 /dev/disk2s1
I've created /Volumes/rescue as a mount point and tried most of those devices with "/sbin/mount_msdos [device] /Volumes/rescue", with the following results:
/dev/disk1:
mount_msdos: Unsupported sector size (0)
/dev/disk1s1:
mount_msdos: Unsupported sector size (1)
/dev/disk1s2:
mount_msdos: /dev/disk1s2: Bad file descriptor
/dev/disk1s3:
mount_msdos: Unsupported sector size (0)
/dev/disk2:
mount_msdos: Unsupported sector size (64543)
/dev/disk2s1:
kextload: cannot resolve dependencies for kernel extension /System/Library/Extensions/msdosfs.kext
error loading extension /System/Library/Extensions/msdosfs.kext
mount_msdos: msdos filesystem is not available
Based on this, I'm guessing that disk2s1 is the device I want. Unfortunately, when I try to poke around in /System/Library/Extensions, I'm getting I/O errors...gah. I have a bad feeling about this.

How can I mount an external hard drive via command line

I have an external hard drive that's been formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" (the default option from Disk Utility). I'm in single-user mode and want to mount the drive. I noticed that when I plug in the drive to the USB port I get some new items in the /dev/ directory, namely:
disk3, disk3s1, disk3s2, rdisk3, rdisk3s1, rdisk3s2
I imagine I'm only interested in the disk3*, but I'm not sure which one (or what the differences are, there's only 1 partition on the drive).
Also, I'm not sure which mount command to use, there are several in the /sbin/ directory. I tried the "mount" command and got a message that noted: "Incorrect super block." Any ideas?

/usr/sbin/diskutil mount /dev/disk3

How to mount USB & CDROM drives from single user mode - Solaris boot disk?

Hi All,
I need to carry out ufsrestore on a single newly replaced system disk (no redundancy / mirroring) from either USB or CDROM drives from the following steps:
( i ) GRUB => e, e, cdrom –s, Enter, b (boot from Solaris 10 x86 media).
( ii ) Choose menu 1 for Install Solaris Interactive Mode to reach single user mode.Below are the commands that I have tried in single user mode without success:
mount –r –F pcfs /dev/dsk/c1t0d0p0 /cdrom (after unmount Solaris CD)
mount: /dev/dsk/c1t0d0p0 is not a DOS filesystem.
svcadm –v enable smserver
svcadm: Pattern ‘smserver’ doesn’t match any instances
svcadm enable autofs
svcadm: Pattern ‘autofs’ doesn’t match any instances
devfsadm
devfsadm: mkdir failed for /dev 0s1ed: Read-only file system
mkdir /mnt
mkdir: Failed to make directory “/mnt”; Read-only file systemPart of the problem is due to the current READ ONLY filesystems which does not allow the creation of mount point such as /mnt.
I have been able to create both / root (/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0) and /export/home (/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0) filesystems with newfs that are awaiting for restore using ufsrestore.
The only option I am left with is to attach a secondary disk to install Solaris 10 on either of them before bring the system to multi-user mode so that service such as volmgt, autofs, volfs are available to access USB & CDROM drives.
Any suggestion on how to resolve this issue?
Many thanks,
Jack

Hi JKGN,
Is the directory a located under the root filesystem. ie /a? Are there any other mount point for say USB drive as well? I am not in a position to try it out right now but will get back
to you soon on whether /a exist or not.
Btw, the last thing I managed to do on this system at the time was added a secondary 1TB internal disk with the intention to restore both / and /export/home data onto this disk while
making use of all the disk device management services such as the following services only available in a fully installed Solaris system (both single & multi-user modes) installed on the
primary disk:
# svcs smserver
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         Jun_08   svc:/network/rpc/smserver:default
# svcs autofs
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         Jun_08   svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default
# devfsadm
# iostat -En
c1t0d0           Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: ATA      Product: SAMSUNG HD321KJ Revision: 0-11 Serial No:
Size: 320.07GB <320072932864 bytes>
Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 0 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
Illegal Request: 41 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0
c0t0d0           Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 5 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: PHILIPS Product: DVD+-RW DVD8801 Revision: AD21 Serial
Size: 17.54GB <17538875392 bytes>
Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 5 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
Illegal Request: 10 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0
c2t0d0           Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: JetFlash Product: Transcend 16GB   Revision: 1100 Serial No:
Size: 0.00GB <0 bytes>
Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 0 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
Illegal Request: 7 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0
# rmformat
Looking for devices...
     1. Volmgt Node: /vol/dev/aliases/cdrom0
        Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2
        Physical Node: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,1/ide@0/sd@0,0
        Connected Device: PHILIPS DVD+-RW DVD8801 AD21
        Device Type: DVD Reader/WriterHowever, I was disappointed that "iostat -En" has not found the secondary disk (1 TB) even though it was available earlier, for Solaris installation as the only disk on the same system.
As a result, I am left with no option but the need to rebuild this system with only a single primary disk while in single user mode. However, the single user mode that I am in is the
one from Solaris installation disk with restrictive (_cannot create folder for mount point or running disk management utilities_) capability such as those services just covered, compared to one from a completed Solaris installation system with full access to all filesystems and utilities / commands in general.
I would very much value your assistance on how to mount both CD & USB in this restrictive limited Read Only OS (assume that it is running from memory) in order to get complete access to
the blank primary disk so that full restore with ufsrestore could take place.
Thanks in advance,
Jack
Edited by: 797805 on 9/06/2012 04:15

Since upgrading to Lion I can no longer mount my external hard drive

I backed up about 10 minutes before installing Lion when I was on Snow Leopard. I know my drive works fine and there are no issues with it.
However, when Lion was installed, I wanted to perform a Time Machine Backup, but it said my backup disk was unavailable. I checked in the Finder and it wasn't showing up in the side bar, even though it was connected to my Mac and the indicator light on the hard drive itself was flashing - suggesting drive activity. I can also hear the drive spinning.
I opened Disk Utility and the external hard drive appears in the side bar and it says 'WD My Passport 071A Media'. Underneath that is the 'Time Machine Backups' drive which is greyed out. I have tried right clicking on it and choosing Mount but it won't mount, and I have also tried Repair Disk which doesn't finish, but also doesn't report any errors either. If I run Verify Disk and Repair Disk on the 'WD My Passport 071A Media' drive (which is the same drive) it does not report any problems and says the drive is working fine.
I have tried updating the drive's firmware and using different ports but neither have worked. I have also tried rebooting my Mac.
I really need to use this drive to backup and I can't format it because I can't afford to lose any data on there. Could someone please give me some advice or tell me how to fix this? I would appreciate it so much.
Thanks,
Nathan

Nathan Miah wrote:
Is there absolutely anything else I could do to sort this such as phone Apple Support
If you want.
or maybe install Snow Leopard using the disc it came on with my Mac and just set it up from a Time Machine Backup on my external hard drive (since it works under SL)?
Did you install Lion on an empty partition, or did you upgrade Snow Leopard? If you upgraded, I'd not recommend erasing it, since your backups are apparently gone. It's doubtful Snow Leopard will recognize them.
It's not just backups on the drive either, there are other important things on there, so why won't they show?
Mixing Time Machine backups and other data is not a good idea. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. It sounds like the whole disk is corrupted.
I just really don't understand how this happened. Could it not be an issue with WD because they haven't issued firmware to support Lion yet?
If this is a simple external HD, connected by USB or FireWire, no, unless you installed some of WD's software on it. That shouldn't prevent it from being seen at all, but anything's possible.

My G5 will no longer mount any external hard drive

I am running a G5 Power PC on OS10.4 and am recently unable to mount any of my 4 external hard drives via firewire 400, 800, usb on either front or rear buses. I have tried multiple cables, power supplies, and have run disk utility but still cannot see any of my external drives. I have disconnected everything and shut down my computer for 15 minutes, restarted with one drive at a time, and still nothing. Any other ideas before I lug my desktop in for repair?

I have disconnected everything and shut down my computer for 15 minutes....
Don't just shut it down, shut it down and disconnect it from wall power for 10-15 minutes.

Mount an external hard drive in single user mode

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