Mount device via USB in single user mode

Hi.
Help much needed. My macbook pro appeared to be crashed with harddisk problem
at start time... unable to boot to normal login screen.
When I run in single user mode, I dont seem to see my thumbdrive, or external device.
I connected them via the USB ports on my Macbook pro (17")(Snow Leopard)
I checked /dev/disk* and saw only disk0 (disk0, disk0s1, disk0s2, disk0s3).
I never get to see disk1 no matter what I tried. (I've various MSDOs format,
or NTFS format disks).
I followed the advise here:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=232365
Am I supposed to be able to see the drive the moment I connect it to the
port?
Thanks.
Marc

When I insert the disk, the root prompt would come telling me the USBMSC message. So, it does know I inserted the external drive. But yet, no new refresh of the /dev.
The device should be listed in /dev after the USBMSC message whether you mounted the root file system write or not.
$ ls /dev/disk*
/dev/disk0 /dev/disk0s1 /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk0s3
Either the boot partition table is APM or GPT with two partitions.
I went to /Volumes and able to read the directory of files that I want to copy.
You should stay out of the /Volumes directory. Reference your path like->
ls -l /Users/<your name>/Documents/
And avoid creating mount points in the /Volumes directory. It is used by diskarbitration.
At this point, I would stop running fsck_hfs on the device (or any other utility) and either try to mount the drive via firewire disk mode or have someone block copy the disk.

Similar Messages

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.

To mount a CD-ROM in Single User Mode. How?

Thank you for reading my question.
I need to run single user mode on my iMac because of a disk problem. I would like to be able to mount the cd drive while I am in single user mode. I would also like to be able to mount usb hard drives with confidence, so that I can copy off files from the internal hard drive.
I am in single user mode, which I get to by holding down Command-S on startup. I can look at the disks that are attached to my computer by executing
ls -l /dev/disk*
However this appears to be adding disks. I started with /dev/disk2 and /dev/disk2s1 etc which I understand are partitions on that external drive. Now when I list /dev/disk* I have /dev/disk3 and a couple of partitions on those devs. Is that normal? Have I not unmounted disks properly?
I have been using a directory that already exists as the mount point for my usb drives using
mount -t hfs /dev/disk1 /cores
which worked fine. Alas the disk I mounted on that directory was too small. Now I can't mount a disk on there. Do I need to unmount or fix up that assignment?
If I were to create a directory in /Volumes is that advisable? How do I make the root directory readable is that by using 'mount -uw'?
Thank you. Please if you answer my question, try to be clear on what commands to use and why. Bear in mind that other people will read this, and no one on the web seems able to write suggestions very clearly. Maybe we can be the first! If I have not been clear, please feel free to ask for clarification. i am not a total unix newbie. Rather in the 20 years since I was a sysadmin, my memory has faded.
Pete

I think you need to post this in a different forum. I think the Developer Forums would be the right choice.
In any event from the little Unix I know you can't mount a removable device until it's connected which means you need to put a CD/DVD into the optical drive. At that point if you enter 'df' you should see the device if it is mounted automatically (which I believe it does.)
In single-user mode the entire drive is readable and all files accessible. You are the 'root' user. In order to put the system into write mode you must enter 'mount -uw /'. Note the '/' at the end of the comnmand line. That makes the entire system writeable.
You do not need to create a directory in /Volumes. When the CD/DVD is recognized an entry in /Volumes will appear unless the disc is unformatted.
Now take some of the above with a grain of salt. I'm certainly no Unix expert.

Mounting external drive while in Single-User mode

Last night, a friend of mine's hard drive was failing in his Macbook (in San Diego, I'm in Colorado). Booting into normal mode would cause a lot of errors. He booted into single-user mode and could not figure out how to mount his firewire drive. I booted into single-user mode on my Macbook and hooked up my USB drive and did an 'ls -ltr /dev' to see if the device showed up. Since it did not show up on the listing of /dev, there's no obvious way to mount it. I can't seem to find any legitimate posting out there nor here. Is there an answer to this problem?
Thanks,
Dave

Perform the mount command listed here, using a different mount tool if it's not a Mac formatted drive.
(36291)

Wipe a HD via Unix in Single User Mode?

Is it possible to wipe a hard drive using diskutil or another method when booting up in Single User Mode? We routinely need to wipe drives and if possible, this would be the easiest.
I suspect because the OS that boots in Single User Mode is on that same drive will make this impossible.
Thanks in advance for your tips and comments,
Doug

Yes, you cannot erase an OS while it's 'hosting' the erasure. Single user mode is part of Mac OS X, so it's on the hard drive, not in the firmware or anything super-low-level like that. Oh well. So... you might be able to erase the vast majority of user, application, and even OS files, but it won't be complete and won't be 'as good as' a volume-format.
A couple alternatives come to mind (sorry if you know all this. Not trying to be pedantic or patronizing, just making sure you know your options).
We keep host computers around just for running wipes, backups, and diagnostics that cannot run from a drive holding the booted OS. You simply restart the to-be-wiped Mac holding the 't' key, connect it via firewire, and treat it as an external hard drive.
You could also just boot from a Mac OS X install disc and wipe from the copy of Disk Utility included on the disc. Better yet, throw a +bona fide+ copy of OS X onto a pocket hard drive, boot the victim-Mac from that (hold option while it is first starting up), and wipe the internal HD normally, now that it's not in use. You could maybe even use single user mode in the booting OS, like you'd imagined, and format from there (I'm not sure that would be faster than letting it boot normally, though, as you might have to use "dd" or some other similar low-level wipe method, as I don't think the frameworks required for Apple's cli "diskutil" are available in single user mode).
I haven't tried to use it on a Mac, but I have a 256 MB USB flash drive with, er, ['Darn' Small Linux|http://tinyurl.com/5md7t] on it for diagnosing Windows boxes. It runs a script on boot which, if you don't intervene to run utilities or what-have-you, will wipe all attached hard drives and shut down. I keep it locked up for understandable reasons, but its super useful just as a time-saver, booting most machines and beginning the countdown-to-wipe in under ten seconds.
Anyway, let us know what your goals and thoughts are.
Cheers, Joel

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...

Cannot edit sudoers file in single user mode.

I did not back up my sudoers file on my pro.
I made a change to it, adding my "test" user to be able to use sudo, but upon restarting, it didn't work, and I cannot edit the file via cd in single user mode.
I mounted the drive, changed permissions, but it seems that I don't have the option to use vi, visudo, vim.
Thanks for the help.

I mounted the hdd using the command below.
I then made sure I could get to the file by cd to it.
Then once I was there, i would attempt to type vis <tab> to complete, and visudo does not show up. Typed in visudo, nothing. This was on a brand new mb pro. I can wipe it out, but I would rather figure out why its not working.
The reason for all this is I have to give it to a user at my job. We don't want them to have admin rights to install anything they want, but they need to use sudo in X11 for compiling and such. I read online that I can edit/add their username to the sudoers file, and allow them the right to sudo for compiling, starting apache on their laptops, etc.
Thanks.

Mount USB Device in Single User Mode

Hi All,
Can anyone give me any assistance of mounting a USB stick in single user mode?
I am trying to use the command:
$ mount -uw /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/usb
But it get the error:
--specified device does not match mounted device
If I put the USB stick in normal OSX mode, then run 'df -k' in terminal, it is mounted by automounter, but I can't seem to get it to mount in single user mode.
Thanks,
Nik

Hi Nik,
   I don't believe that there are enough services started in Single User Mode to do this; you'll have to start the services yourself. However, I haven't tested this so I don't know. Wanna be a Guinea Pig?
   If your going to need to write to the boot drive, mount it read/write with:
/sbin/mount -uw /
Next, start the basic services, including diskarbitrationd:
/usr/libexec/registermach_bootstrapservers /etc/mach_init.d
The above should be one line, modulo wrapping. Then start diskarbitrationd:
/sbin/SystemStarter start Disks
You should probably check /dev and see what disks are already mounted. (without the USB stick) I assume that the services that mount removable media are now started so insert the stick and see if it appears mounted in /Volumes. Otherwise, check /dev and see if there's a new disk. If it only appears in /dev, you can use the standard mount command to mount it. If it doesn't appear in /dev then you might reboot into Single User Mode and repeat the procedure with the USB stick already inserted. If none of that works then this must not be the right method and you have my apologies.
Gary
~~~~
   Computers are like air conditioners. Both stop working
   if you open windows.
      -- Adam Heath

Single-user mode: How to mount and access an external USB drive?

My MacBook Pro HD is acting up. Cannot boot normally or into "safe mode". Cannot reinstall OS without wiping out the HD. Need to recover some critical files but DiskUtil First Aid and Restore options cannot successfully complete. Problem traced down to "invalid node structure" which means I either have a hardware problem or my filesystem partition directory structure is corrupted. I need to recover some files that are not backed up (timin issue with my regular backup process).
I can boot into single-user mode, mount the root file system (/sbin/mount -uw /) and can see/navigate the rot filesystem structure via good UNIX command line. Here's what I would like to do (in single-user mode):
1. Mount an external USB drive (250 GB already formatted as Mac OS X Extended)
2. Copy various files and/or directories from my HD to the external USB drive (UNIX cp command)
I realize I could go spend $$ for the Disk Warrior or Data Rescue products (or something similar) that SHOULD help me recover my HD or files, but it seems silly to do this when I can see, touch and taste them from within single-user mode....
Comments? Suggestions?
TIA --
Trent
P.S. Once I've recovered my files, I'll try to reformat the HD and then reinstall the OS. And THEN go have Apple look at my machine (thank goodness for AppleCare coverage)!

Resolution:
1) Boot system in single-user mode (SUM) with external HD attached.
2) Execute the following UNIX CLI commands once SUM boot process is completed:
# fsck -fy
# mount -uw /
# mkdir /Volumes/target_directory
# mount -t hfs -w /dev/diskXXX /Volumes/target_directory
# cp -RXv /source_directory /Volumes/target_directory
Where XXX is the device-level name for your external HD's data partition. In my case this was /dev/disk1s2. It may take some experimentation to identify this device name if your system has multiple HD's.
3) Verify contents were successfully copied onto the /Volumes/target_directory.
Comments and observations:
- Do NOT use "/" as your source directory - cp will make a second (redundant) copy of /volumes/target_directory
- I was able to successfully copy ALL files off my HD despite the fsck command's "invalid node structure" error message with this simple procedure. YMMV, depending on the state of your HD.
- The repeated disk0s2: I/O error warnings displayed during the SUM boot process did not seem to have a negative effect on this procedure. I also received this same error warning intermittently as I navigated the mounted filesystem did not seem to be a problem, either. Again, YMMV.
Commercial software:
I downloaded ProSoft Engineering's Data Rescue 3 product (trial version) before spending $99 to attempt to recover my "bad" HD's data via mounting to a good system with FW target mode. It could not successfully complete its "QuickScan" process and immediately hung on block 0 of 390M during its "Deep Scan" process. The product did seem to function properly on an operational system. ProSoft's technical support was responsive and helpful but had no answer for my "Deep Scan" error.
I did not attempt to use Alsoft's Disk Warrior 4 product. I could not find any trial software available and was reluctant to spend $100 based upon the mixed reviews and comments on this discussion forum as well as other reviews. Alsoft does claim to address the "invalid node structure" error in their marketing materials. Hindsight being 20/20 - I saved $100 by using this simple procedure.
Final note:
Neither Leopard nor Snow Leopard's installation DVD could recognize the bad internal HD when trying to do a reinstall. While DiskUtil was able to "see" the bad internal drive it immediately failed when I tried to do an "erase and format". Took the system to my local Apple store and the Genius ran a tool called "SMART Utility" from Volitans Software (www.volitans-software.com). SMART utility confirmed that my HD was bad so it was replaced. AppleCare pays for itself (once again!).

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

Cannot mount USB disk in SIngle-user mode (solaris 10)

Hi all ,
I need some help please :
I can read/write to my USB disks when i'm in muti-user mode but when to I swith to single-user mode ( init S ), I cannot mount it.
in Single-user mode , i started volume management daemon :
#/etc/init.d/volgmt start
#volcheck
but i'm still not able to mount it.
I tried to mount manually:
#mount /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0 /testpoint , i have this error: < mount : not a UFS magic number ( 0x0) , dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0 is not of this fstype.
My system recognizes the USB device though in single-user mode:
This is an output of #iostat -En
c2t0d0 Soft Errors: 1 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: BUFFALO Product: ClipDrive Revision: 2.00 Serial No:
Size:0.07GB <65339392 bytes>
Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 0 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
Illegal Request: 1 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0

Hi ,
thanks for your advice. My problem is resolved.
The USB drive was actually a FAT filesystem.
so I did # mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0:c /testpoint and everything went fine
I can read/write to my USB disks when i'm in
muti-user mode but when to I swith to single-user
mode ( init S ), I cannot mount it.
in Single-user mode , i started volume management
daemon :
/etc/init.d/volgmt start
#volcheck
but i'm still not able to mount it.It probably requires other items to be started
first.
I tried to mount manually:
#mount /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0 /testpoint , i have
this
error: < mount : not a UFS magic number ( 0x0) ,
dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0 is not of this fstype.
Looks like it's assuming UFS. If this is a pcfs
filesystem, give it the type on the mount line.
# mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0 /testpointYeah, this was the right command, I had to specify option < -F pcfs >.
but I read somethere on this forum i had to specify :c as the drive for FAT at the end of c2t0d0p0 , so the full command was:
# mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0:c /testpoint
>
DarrenThanks,
Sakolan.

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

Can I mount a firewire device in single user mode?

I've still got this idea I can rescue data from a hard drive that won't mount.
I put my external backup drive on another iMac to simulate what would happen. Briefly,
I plug in the drive, note the device name.
I reboot into single user mode.
The drive automatically powers off. Grrr.
I turn it back on again. It does not show up in /dev

How far did you go under "single user" mode? In "Tiger", running 'sh /etc/rc' (instructions to use this are included among the messages displayed starting up in single-user mode) starts up all sorts of things. Perhaps plugging in the drive after the script has run will have it show up in '/dev/' (I haven't tested this)...

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.

Single User Mode - mount external drive and copy user files to there

I have an iBook G4 running (I think) Tiger (although it may be Panther). AHT reports a bad HD and it will not boot from that drive. Mounting it via Target Disk to another Mac won't permit me to even see beyond the root directory; just a spinning sunburst at the bottom of the Finder window.
If I boot into single-user mode, I can "ls" and "cd" to see the files and folders in the home folder. Assuming the HD is named "Macintosh HD" and I have a USB-connected hard drive named "Backup", what are the commands I need to use in single-user mode in order to mount "Backup" and copy the user's home folder (there's only one on this drive) over to "Backup"?
As I indicated above, I'm not absolutely sure whether this iBook is running Panther or Tiger.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!

I'm in the middle of copying things.
I did a chmod -R ug+w (IIRC) to the 300GB volume and this made it writable.
I then CD'd to the Pictures folder on the Macintosh HD.
I then did a cp *.jpg /Volumes/300GB/ and found that it managed to copy all of the jpegs that were sitting loose in the Pictures folder. Some of the photos were corrupted but I expected this as the drive is reported to have a hardware issue by AHT.
I'm now in the process of copying the iPhoto Library using the cp -r command. Some files are being reported as bad and can't be copied but, again, I'm expecting this.
Whatever I can get from this drive will be a bonus. I'll mention that I used Drive Genius to duplicate the HD to a disk image and, while this was done successfully, it resulted in a "no filesystem" error when I attempted to mount it. However, I -did- ask for it to be mounted anyway and then used DiskWarrior on it (even though it didn't appear in the Finder). It took a few hours for DiskWarrior to come up with a "preview" of the disk (as the filesystem was thoroughly hosed). The User folder was nowhere to be found and every file that was displayed was corrupt. That's why I'm trying this "out of the GUI" process.
I'll thank everyone who made suggestions; they all pointed me in the proper direction.

Mount device via USB in single user mode

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