/sbin/fsck -fy /sbin/mount -uw /

All of the your contributions to the Apple Forum is greatly appreciated .
This is continued from the last inquiry.
This may or may not have any relation to posts on regarding Apple Mac Graphics Memory And Virtual Memory problems posted in the forum , but here we go :
Problems are happening on my Mountain Lion OS X Mac .
Upon trying to get an understanding of what's going on , I started at the BIOS EFI UEFI level , and found something :
I did a startup with this , ie Verbose Mode And Single User :
Power + Command + V + S
And what I got was :
root#
And then I looked around at the Verbose Mode And Single User , tried to understand what was going on in there , and then I simply moved up with the arrow key , Up Arrow .
Of course , just like in Terminal , when you go up you find the history or past .
What I find before my lines of the root# is this :
BSD root: disk0s2, major 1, minor 2
FireWire (OHCI) Lucent ID
Kernel is LP64
com.apple.launchd   1   com.apple.launchd   1   *** launchd[1] has started up in single-user mode. ***
com.apple.launchd   1   com.apple.launchd   *** Verbose boot, will log to /dev/console. ***
com.apple.launchd   1   com.apple.launchd   *** Shutdown logging is enables. ***
AppleUSBMultitouchDriver::checkStatus - received Status Packet, Payload 2: device was reinitialized
Singleuser boot -- fsck not done
Root device is mounted read-only
If you want to make modifications to files:
     /sbin/fsck -fy
     /sbin/mount -uw /
If you wish to boot the system:
     exit
:/ root#
:/ root# stty -onclr -echo echonl
:/ root# /usr/bin/atos -p "1" -printHeader
:/ root# /usr/bin/atos -p "BezelUIServer" -printHeader
Will you please explain what the fsck not done , and also the Root device is mounted read-only means ?
Also , please advise what should I try first -fy or -uw / ?
I have backed up my data. Thanks everyone for the useful Apple Forum tips on how to exactly get the data you choose to backup. Excellent.
--OSX128bit

If you have to ask those questions then you really should not be booting into single user mode. You can cause real damage to your system.
Briefly fsck is a program to check and repair disk drives. The root device mounted read only means the root disk is not writeable,
If you thing there is problems with your system boot into safe mode (hold the shift key while booting) and see if the problems go away or change.
BTW you never said why it is you are booting into single user.
good luck

Similar Messages

Hey I was on my computer and it wasn't starting up so I pressed command s and this code stuff showed up and said :/ root# It says "if you want to make modifications to files: /sbin/fsck -fy /sbin/mount -uw /

It says "if you want to make modifications to files:
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

Hello frankenstienfromab,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information on this, take a look at:
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417
If your computer won't start up normally, you may need to use a disk repair utility to fix the issue. Mac OS X includes two utilities for this—Disk Utility and fsck (a command-line utility).
fsck is a command-line utility that may be able to verify and repair a disk.
Best of luck,
Mario

[Solved -sorta] systemd-fsck []: fsck: /sbin/fsck.ext4: execute failed

Greetings.
I am getting the following on boot:
Starting Version 218
A password is required to access the MyStorage volume:
Enter passphrase for /dev/sda3
/dev/mapper/MyStorage-rootvol: clean, 210151/983040 files, 2284613/3932160 block
[ 78.084720] systemd-fsck [280]: fsck: /sbin/fsck.ext4: execute failed: Exec format error
[ 78.085215] systemd-fsck [287]: fsck: /sbin/fsck.ext2: execute failed: Exec format error
I then end up at a login prompt but if I try to login, I get “Login incorrect”. Sometimes Getty will stop and restart on tty1. Then I get returned to the login prompt.
This came about after upgrading with Pacman (which included “upgraded e2fsprogs (1.42.12-1 -> 1.42.12-2)”) a few days ago. Pacman completed successfully but on reboot the system froze forcing a hard reset.
I've booted to a USB and run fsck on the boot partition (the only ext2 partition). Ditto on the root and home volumes. All fine. I've also mounted all three and can access the data.
I would have thought it was something to do with the e2fs upgrade but it obviously scanned the root volume fine and I haven't been able to find any similar reports online.
I've searched online for ideas and I've also searched for logs which might give me some indication of what the cause is but at this point, I've reached my limits.
I'd just nuke the data and start again but I really want to understand what happened here.
Any thoughts on what caused this or suggestions on how to proceed?
Thank you.
Stephen
Last edited by FixedWing (2015-03-16 01:40:20)

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … ond_repair
However, it may be simplest to just re-install in your case -- it depends whether you want to use the troubleshooting & repairing as a learning process or if you just want your system up & running again ASAP...
All fixed and working just like nothing happened.
I did use the advice at the referred link plus a few others on archlinux.org and elsewhere. Yes, an absolutely wonderful learning experience!
I manually reinstalled e2fsprogs. That got Pacman working again and I was able to boot into the system. Then I used Pacman to reinstall e2fsprogs properly plus the other seven packages which were also installed during the same Pacman session despite their being corrupted.
What I really don't get is how Pacman could accept a package with 0 bytes and install it? How could such a package possible pass the security check? When I reinstalled the packages, Pacman of course refused to install the corrupt packages in the cache and deleted them. So why didn't that happen initially? I can only think that a corrupt file in that process terminated prematurely and that Pacman wasn't robust enough to detect this so simply continued on, now skipping the scans and installing the corrupt packages. So just to be sure it wasn't a corrupt file in Pacman itself, I also forced a reinstall of that package as well. I've upgraded packages since without issue so I have to assume that whatever the issue was is now gone.
Anyway, thanx for the help!
Stephen

A problem for writing sbin/fsck -fy

I´m trying to do "sbin/fsck" When the black screen with white words appears I write "sbin" but when I try to write " /" this signal doesn´t appears, instead of it "&"
Please, could anybody help me?

I've never seen this and can't explain it but you don't need to put the full path there just use
fsck -fy
and if you do put the full path then enter it correctly
/sbin/fsck -fy
not
sbin/fsck -fy

On MacBook air, "/sbin/fsck - fy" gives an error "Invalid sibling link"k

MacBook air will not start on powen-on. Tried Disk Utility, but it can't repair. Tried "/sbin/fsck -fy" It gives an error "Invalid sibling link (4, 35776)... and at the end given a Disk full error, and quits by saying that "the volume Macintosh HD could not be repaier"
Any suggestions on how to fix the issue?

MacBook air will not start on powen-on. Tried Disk Utility, but it can't repair. Tried "/sbin/fsck -fy" It gives an error "Invalid sibling link (4, 35776)... and at the end given a Disk full error, and quits by saying that "the volume Macintosh HD could not be repaier"
Any suggestions on how to fix the issue?

/sbin/fsck -fy ....Invalid Node Structure?

Hi,
I am new to the forum and find it very helpfull. Thank you for that!
I have been trying to recover my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.6.8.
I cannot boot. Power on, Grey apple screen....progress bar appears...then 1/10th of the way in it would hang then reboot and hang again then turn off.
I have tried different things posted on the forum, everything from clearng the memory to booting from CD. No luck.
I created a boot disk on an SD Card using another MacBook Pro. I them ran the boot option from SD and I was successfull in getting past the progress bar but then it hangs on grey screen spinning gears. I let that run for 4 hours and no luck.
I then ran "/sbin/fsck -fy". It came back with "...Invalid node structure (4, 25707) ** the volume Macintosh HD could not be varified completely. /dev/rdisk0s2 (hfs) EXITED WITH SIGNAL 8.
Any ideas?

3. User also do not recall where she left her recovery CDs.
Any attempt to repair the corrupted disk using Disk Utility is likely to be temporary, and replacing the HD will require reinstalling the operating system from the MBP's original discs. If the user cannot find them, obtain a replacement set from Apple. They will need the MBP's serial number. The cost is reasonable ($25 or so).

Mac not booting normally after running '/sbin/fsck -fy' in Single user mode

HI, I tried to log in to single user mode and run the '/sbin/fsck -fy' command. This command failed. So I rebooted my Macbook pro by 'reboot' command. On bootup I hear the chime shoud and can see the Mac Symbol but never reach the login prompt. The round circle keeps rotating over the gray screen and nothing happens.
Then I again hard rebooted mac book and entered single user mode. I ran again '/sbin/fsck -fy' many times and after many attempts the command stuck and never returned.
Then I tried using the recovery method to reinstall MAC OS X. It asked me to choose the Harddrive where to install MAC OSX. But the option of "macintosh HD" was disabled and message was " hard drive locked".
Please help me how to boot my MAC normally :'(

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
Boot in Recovery again and open Disk Utility. Then, choose "Macintosh HD" in the sidebar and repair the hard drive. If it is repaired, restart and OS X should start correctly. If not, you will probably have to format the hard disk.
You only have to use that command when you have problems with the Mac OS X volume filesystem that they couldn't be repaired with Disk Utility, and as this command got stuck, probably damaged the OS X volume filesystem

My iMac will not boot up from the Leopard upgrade disk nor will it eject it.

My iMac is very slow and sluggish. Followed online instructions to use the Disk Utility to run repair. After doing so it told to reboot my system from the install disk and then run the Disk Uitility to run repair from it. I put in my Leopard upgrade disk and tried to reboot. I get the chime and the Apple logo and hear the disk trying to be read, but after about 5 minutes my iMac shuts completely off. I have tried to eject the disk using all the methods found in the community and nothing works. I want to try my orignal Mac OS X install disk to see if that works. My computer is about a 2007 model. It worked great until just a couple days ago. Frankly I can't afford to take it in so I will have to figure this out on my own with your help. :-(

I cannot open terminal. When booting I get the gray screen with the Apple logo and the twirling comb goes for a while and shut the computer completely off.
I got into the single-mode user and learned the following: disk1s3: I/O error. SAM Multimedia: Read & Write failed, SENSE_KEY = 0x03, ASC = 0x02m ASCQ = 0x00.
Singleuser boot -- fsck not done
Root device is mounted read-only.
If you want to make modifcations to files: /sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
I typed in the drutil eject and got:
SAM Multimedia: Read & Write failed, SENSE_KEY = 0x03, ASC = 0x02m ASCQ = 0x00.
Library not loaded. Reason: not suiteable image found.
It did find:
/system/library/rivateframeworks/installserver.framwork/versions/a/installserver : unknown file type, firfst eight bytes: 0xCA 0xfe 0xba 0xbe 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x04 Trace/BPT trap.
I have tried holding the left mouse key, the eject key and nothing happens. To bad I can't pull the
thing out with tweezers.
So where do I go from here?

Unable to log in to the user account [username] at this time

My Powerbook G4 is running Mac OS X 10.4.11
Processor: 1.5 GHz PowerPC G4
Memory: 768 MB DDR SDRAM
Startup Disk Macintosh HD
Serial # 4H511OAJRJ5
Capacity 74.4 GB
Available: 2.3 GB
My problems began when I had a warning message that read something like, “your startup disk is getting full. Delete some files”
Around the same time my battery was showing signs of being spent (wouldn’t take a full charge) and would shutdown my powerbook in the middle of operation. I replaced the battery within 12 hours, rebooted, and everything seemed normal; I could log in and access all programs, files, photos, music, etc. The error message reappeared to deletes some files. I ran TechTool Deluxes and it suggested repairing my Volume Directory. There were a few suggestions in green and one in red. I accepted the ones in green and made the changes. It reopened TechTool and ran again, this time everything showed up as a “red” (drastic) directory change. I did not accept. I shut down. I rebooted, and that is when my heart sank.
My account log in screen appeared (I have my master account and a “test” account available) and I entered my log in password. After several moments, the message “You are unable to log in to the user account [username] at this time.” I can log in to my “test” account but I have not been able to access any of my files from that account. Also, my Test account appears to be running Panther instead of Tiger; could that be? Anyway, I read some similar problem posts here and was hopeful that DiskWarrior could help restore me. I purchased and ran it successfully (at least DiskWarrior said it was a success) but I still have the same results.
I tried to access both my caches folder and my Desktop folder from my “test” account, but these are the error messages I received:
The folder “Caches” could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges.
The folder “Desktop” could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges.
I was shocked to see my Available space was only 2.5 GB. I don’t know how that can be right.
I’m open to anything to retrieve my files – Any suggestions?

Around the same time my battery was showing signs of being spent (wouldn’t take a full charge) and would shutdown my powerbook in the middle of operation. I replaced the battery within 12 hours, rebooted, and everything seemed normal; I could log in and access all programs, files, photos, music, etc. The error message reappeared to deletes some files.
You need to delete some file not try to repair the disk volume. but anyway...
I ran TechTool Deluxes and it suggested repairing my Volume Directory. There were a few suggestions in green and one in red. I accepted the ones in green and made the changes. It reopened TechTool and ran again, this time everything showed up as a “red” (drastic) directory change. I did not accept. I shut down. I rebooted, and that is when my heart sank.
You need to develop a full backup plan. Get an external hd and backup to it.
My account log in screen appeared (I have my master account and a “test” account available) and I entered my log in password. After several moments, the message “You are unable to log in to the user account [username] at this time.”
Would you be using filevault? Which would mean you need more space.
I can log in to my “test” account but I have not been able to access any of my files from that account. Also, my Test account appears to be running Panther instead of Tiger; could that be?
Doubtful. What does apple > about this mac say?
Anyway, I read some similar problem posts here and was hopeful that DiskWarrior could help restore me. I purchased and ran it successfully (at least DiskWarrior said it was a success) but I still have the same results.
I tried to access both my caches folder and my Desktop folder from my “test” account, but these are the error messages I received:
The folder “Caches” could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges.
The folder “Desktop” could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges.
Which desktop folder? these are normal messages.
I was shocked to see my Available space was only 2.5 GB. I don’t know how that can be right.
Why?
I’m open to anything to retrieve my files – Any suggestions?
I buy an external disk with both fireware & usb and use carbon copy cloner to duplicate you hd.
run batcmd from an admin account to let you change permissions.
From an administrator account enable root & be careful. This will let you look at any file on the system & delete everything!!!
Get a new admin id.
"BatChmod is a Cocoa utility for manipulating file and folder privileges in Mac OS X. It allows the manipulation of ownership as well as the privileges associated to the Owner, Group or others."
http://www.macchampion.com/arbysoft/Welcome.html
As an aside, I just noticed that the button to "apply to all enclosed items' is greyed out. I started checking other folders and best I can tell, all folders on my startup volume will not allow me to apply any permission changes to all enclosed items. Think this might have something to do with the alias issue?
I noticed that my "apply to all enclosed items' button is greyed out too. I use BatChmod fps instead.
Get the Mac to set up an additional administrative account. You can then change the password on your old account.
Start with your computer power off. Hold down command-s. Power on your computer.
Type in the following:
The first two commands will depend on your release of Mac OS X. Look at what is typed out in the console to determine the exact format.
# Type the follow two instructions to access the startup disk in read/write. Press return after each command.
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
cd /var/db
pwd
#List all files. The l is a lower case L.
ls -a
#The move command acts as a rename command in this format.
mv -i .applesetupdone .applesetupdone.old
reboot
Once you've done that the computer reboots and it's like the first time you used the machine. Your old accounts are all safe. From there you just change all other account passwords in the account preferences!!
Limnos adds detailed explainations:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8441597#8441597
The above the idea came from a post by JoseAranda at September 9, 2006 3:48 AM
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/howdo_i_reset_my_mac_os_x_admin_rootpassword.html
You will need to scroll down to see this post. Search for applesetupdone
Or see:
http://superpixel.ch/articles/running-setup-assistant-again/
Once you have a new administrative account, you can change the password of your old administrative account
blue apple > System Preferences > Accounts

Cannot delete Entourage database file

Aloha,
I am running Entourage (v11.3.6) from Office 2004. At some point in the distant past I had to rebuild my database, and created a backup copy of the existing database. That file, originally named "Database" takes up 2.49 GB.
Much later, I decided to delete that file to retrieve the 2.49 GB of disk space. However, emptying the trash causes a kernel panic. I tried a command line "rm" and got a kernel panic. I tried booting into safe mode, but it did not allow me to even try to delete the file. I tried "cat < /dev/null >! Database" and got a kernel panic. (This is a trick that can empty a file that is currently open and being accessed by a process, often a system process that you don't have complete control over.)
Permissions are wide open, the file is unlocked, I can rename it and move it without any consequences. The only thing I can't do is delete it!
I would appreciate any suggestion you have for further attempts.
Thanks.

Thanks for your help. I solved the problem. Apparently journaling does not allow files larger than 2096640 to be deleted. Turning journaling off via Disk Utility, emptying (successfully!) the trash, and then turning journaling back on worked.
Details:
I booted into single user mode (sorry...not safe mode as I had said earlier). This time, I noticed that it said the file system was mounted read-only, and to run fsck to check the file system and then mount the file system to allow read/write. The commands I used were
/sbin/fsck -yf
/sbin/mount -uw /
Note that the "-f" option on fsck forces the check, which was required because journaling was turned on.
After mounting the file system I tried
\rm xyz
and it gave me a much more informative kernel crash. In particular, the first line read
panic(cpu 0): jnl: transaction too big (2093568 >= 2096640 bufsize 4096, tr 0x1cf8fc8 bp 0x2747fdc0
Aha! Neglecting the fact that 2093568 is not larger than 2096640, it indicated that the file size was deemed too large for the removal, and journaling may be involved.
So, I rebooted into normal mode, opened Disk Utility, selected the file system, and then selected the menu "File–>Disable Journaling" (or I could have typed command-J) to disable the journaling. Returning to the Finder I emptied the trash, and voila, no kernel panic. (And I made sure my 2.49 GB was released!)
Thanks again,
Bob

How do I find out a former owners password?

How do I get a former owners password to install software?

I booted my Tiger 10.4.11 in single user mode via holding down the command + s when powering on.
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
passwd user-name
# returned without asking for new password.
# ( did not work )
# ->Start up some utility processes that are needed.
sh /etc/rc
passwd user-name
# asked for new password.
# (worked).
So, the working of passwd has changed over time.
Robert

Blue screen appears after macbook froze and restarting

yesterday my macbook froze after trying to copy some files onto my hd. so i restarted it and switched back on only to find that the apple logo screen stays there forever and the system won't load. so i tried the apple support article number 306857 and used option c without success. i cant use option a because i dont have another mac and option b i cant use because my cd drive is broken atm. so if someone would be kind enough to show me exactly how to setup the commands so i could do it correctly, becuase i really don't understand how to type out the commands.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1545 shows these steps.
Start up in single-user mode by *holding Command-S after restarting the computer*. Note that single-user mode always uses the US English keyboard layout.
*Type these commands, each on a single line followed by Return:*
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
rm -rf /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ApplicationEnhancer.bundle
reboot

Blue screen of death for Mac? Unique situation here... need help please!

Hi,
I've been a Mac User for about 2 years and I'm here because my iMac just crapped out last night for some reason. I apologize for making a new topic because someone might have had the same situation somewhere but I searched for about an hour and couldn't find anything that fell under the same circumstances as my problem. I'll try to use as much details as possible.
Okay, I was downloading programs, not Shapeshifter or anything funny, (a to-do list and a network security program to be exact) and then the network security program, Little Snitch, said I had to restart after installing. Big whoop, I thought. Then, this little pop-up came up and said, "Before restarting the computer... updating cache". I can't remember exact wording but it said something about updating cache upon restart. I think this is the clincher, but I tried booting in safe mode and my computer won't make that noise so I don't know when to hold Shift? Why won't it make the noise? Well, upon installing Leopard, sometimes my sound/volume icon will disappear. I have to restart like five times before it starts to show up sometimes and my sound won't work. So, I'm guessing safe mode isn't an option unless there's some other way to do it.
Here's a screenshot of what I'm seeing:
http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0384un3.jpg
I restarted 3 times and it was just coming up as a mouse pointer but this morning it's doing this. I had cleanly installed Leopard two months ago and never had any problems so again, it's not Leopard to my knowledge and it's not ShapeShifter or any program like that because I know there's a guide about fixing a problem with ShapeShifter.
I read the article that's always recommend after INSTALLING Leopard, but I've had 2 months of grace period before this happened. When I get home, I'm going to try Option C but I would like to hear anybody else's suggestions.
What can I do, fellas? Thanks in advance.

Okay, solved this problem. Evidently, one of the programs I downloaded was bundled with ApplicationEnhancer. It has to be one of the following:
LittleSnitch - most likely
2Remember
ButtonDesign
WireTapPro
I corrected it by following Option C of this article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857
Which reads:
1. Start up in single-user mode by holding Command-S after restarting the computer. Note that single-user mode always uses the US English keyboard layout.
2. Type these commands, each on a single line followed by Return:
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
rm -rf /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ApplicationEnhancer.bundle
reboot
Thanks, everyone! Happy 2008!

User Login(s) / Account gone - BUG - thread overview - summary - solutions?

Hello everyone...
Time to open a new thread... Seems there is a serious bug going on since a while with 10.6 randomly, hit me saturday. After working late switched off my iMac and next morning all my user accounts were gone, not able to login with my account... instead I got a "other" account.
Took me a day to get that fixed. Thanks Apple!
Same problems here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2750969&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13050110&#13050110
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2747165&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12880505&#12880505
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12932314&#12932314
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12754295&#12754295
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12802769&#12802769
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12640182&#12640182
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12836318&#12836318
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12840608&#12840608
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12726662&#12726662
This one has a interesting solution from user Illude
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2644133&tstart=0
This one's from cNet:
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6126_102-505918.html
There are quite some possible solutions (from threads) that seem to help, here are some of the popular ones:
SOLUTION 1:
1 - boot up using your SL disk.
2 - select 'change password'
3 - reset the root password
4 - restart the mac from the system drive
5 - log in as root
6 - open system preferences
7 - create an account with the SAME FULL NAME and ACCOUNT NAME as your 'lost' account
8 - you will be prompted that "a folder with said name already exists - would you like to use the existing folder?" - SELECT OK
9 - log out of root
10- log into your account
SOLUTION 2 for those without TM backup:
Material needed: Snow Leopard DVD
1. Boot from DVD: restart at log in menu you're stuck in. Otherwise hard restart. Press "C" while booting.
2. Change password: in my case only System Administrator (root) and guest appeared. Change the password on System administrator.
3. log in as "System Administrator" with your new password.
4. Check to see if the folder with your user name is still there under "User"
5. Go to System Preference>Account>add account: Set same account name. That will link the new user account with old username account folder. You can also adjust the login window option. For now I checked automatic log in.
6. Restart. You should be able to log in to your old account.
SOLUTION 3 with TERMINAL (from illude - thanks!):
... I had this exact problem. I installed the 10.6.5 update and when I finally rebooted several days later, all non-system users on my machine were deleted. Only "Other" showed up in the login screen. While the users were removed from the Directory Services, their data was still intact though, as their home directories in /Users were unchanged. This is of course a big relief...
After reading this thread and the pages mentioned here, I came up with the following solution. Please replace "username" with the short (Unix) name of your user account (i.e. the one without spaces).
1. Start the computer in Single-User Mode, by holding down Command+S as it boots up. You end up in a terminal as the root user.
2. As suggested on the screen, do the following to check and mount your filesystem:
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
3. Find out which accounts have been deleted (here I assume 'username' is one of them):
defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.preferences.accounts
4. Convince yourself that the user data is still safe:
ls /Users/username
5. I noticed that the 10.6.5 update made backups of the Directory Services and shadow passwords in /private/var/db as the xar archives 'dslocal-backup.xar' and 'shadow-backup.xar', respectively. If you also have these files, you are in luck! Restore the settings for each deleted user, as well as all shadow passwords, as follows:
cd /private/var/db
xar -xf dslocal-backup.xar dslocal/nodes/Default/users/username.plist
xar -xf shadow-backup.xar
6. For good measure, remove the record of deleted users (not sure if this is necessary, but seemed like a good idea at the time):
rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.preferences.accounts.plist
7. Restart the computer:
shutdown -r now
I restored the settings for all deleted users in Step 5, and everyone was back after the reboot. The great thing is that all settings are restored the way they were, including the password, user GUID (which should prevent Time Machine from redoing a full backup as mentioned in this thread) and the login picture (which was stored in the JPEGPhoto field in the plist file and would have been lost otherwise).
Of course, this solution might not apply to your specific problem, so please take care when you tamper with system settings via Single-User Mode.
SOLUTION 4 using a TimeMachine Backup:
If you have a backup with time machine, reinstall with original OSX DVD.
For that type "C" when booting and hold until system boots from DVD.
Go trough necessary steps, then when asked if you want to restore from a TimeMachine Backup, do so. Will take some hours depending on how big your TM backup is and what kind of interface you use (GBit Network, USB, Firewire etc).
After that your system should be restored. However you proably have to update back again to the latest OSX update you were using with that TM backup, as OSX Mail will crash if it doesn't have that exact update environment. Example: your TM backup was done with 10.6.6., mail will crash often if you restore to 10.6.5...
ATTENTION: there may be some side effects after a restore regarding external volumes, they could be locked out as your old user settings are gone...
After restore I could not access two external drives on my system,
1) a firewire 2TB Lacie drive that was "locked". I did not have the rights to access it, and CTRL+I and setting the permissions did not work. permissions were not stored. The OSX Harddisk tool also did not work because the "owner" of that drive could not be set.
Solution: A tiny app called "BatChmod" saved the day, it allowed me "unlock" the permissions of that drive, without being a Unix superfreak knowing all the tweaks.
http://www.macchampion.com/arbysoft/BatchMod/Download.html
2) I could not access my TimeCapsule TM after restore to refresh the backup. Quite interesting because my system just had restored from that drive. The TimeMachine Volume was locked with that little "lock" symbol left of the volume symbol. CTRL+I and setting permissions did not work too... Within OSX Harddisk Tool a TimeCapsule does not show up so you can't fix permissions there either...
Solution: With Airports TimeCapsule Manual Settings there is a option to delete the volume or folders on it. deleted the sparsebundle and voila the TC could be used again.
If there are any other solutions that worked out for you to recover from lost logins/accounts, please post them here, and do not forget to notify apple about that bug at
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
so that it hopefully finally get's fixed with 10.6.7... it seems to be around since 10.5..., emerged again with 10.6 SL, and now came back with 10.6.6. so that should have been quite a long time to fix it.
Thx
Chris
Message was edited by: vertrider
Message was edited by: vertrider

this symptom caught me by surprise just the other day - luckily I had the root account enabled, which is not the default. With the root account enabled, and an available Time Machine backup, recovery is really simple, straightforward and quick.
For my situation, which may not be identical with those for all who may read this thread, the plist files which define for DirectoryService the users I have created, including my admin accounts, and the password hash files were deleted.
if the root account is not enabled on your system, then I suppose you will have to go through either booting in Single User mode or from a System Install disk that will let you run the Terminal application. However it is done, once you have the ability to write to the database directories, and access to a Time Machine backup, the recovery process is thus:
Step 1. Verify that the user account home directories still exist, both for peace of mind and to determine whether this recovery method is appropriate for your situation.
ls -l /Users/
This should show account directories for all the users you have created in the past. If not, then a restore of the user directories from a Time Machine backup, as well as the user DirectoryService files is indicated. And, I would propose that the cause of your particular difficulties is other than most in this thread have experienced.
also, just for fun, open the Accounts Preference Pane in the System Preferences, and see that none of your user accounts are listed. What I found interesting is that the groups that I had created were still defined, it was just the user accounts that were deleted.
Step 2. now, for the meat of the recovery. I recommend opening a pair of Terminal windows, one in which to look at the database directories, the other to look at the Time machine directories.
in the "database" window, change directory to the user accounts area. This is read-write-execute for root only, so if you are not able to cd to this directory, you'll need to wrap the commands in sudo.
cd /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/
ls -l
[non-root version of commands: cd /var/db/dslocal/nodes/; sudo ls -l Default/users/ ]
the result should show a number of plist files, with many system users starting with an underscore, and only a few others: daemon.plist, nobody.plist, root.plist
Step 3. in the "TimeMachine" window, change directory to the user accounts area from a recent backup, such as this one for my computer "Odin", backed up to TimeMachineDrive (this is a long path, not a two line entry):
cd /Volumes/TimeMachineDrive/Backups.backupdb/Odin/2011-04-20-002126/Odin/var/db/d slocal/nodes/Default/users/
then perform a directory listing:
ls -l
[non-root version of command is similar to that in Step 2, only need to get to the dslocal/nodes/ directory on the TimeMachine volume]
you should see all the same plist files as in Step 2, along with the additional user accounts definitions for those accounts you originally created.
to restore the definitions to your system, copy the missing plist files to the database directory used in Step 2. For a missing account file "test.plist", this would be:
cp -X test.plist /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/
[non-root version of command: sudo cp -X Default/users/test.plist /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/ ]
the command option "-X" keeps the extended attributes from being copied along with the file
do the same for each missing plist file.
Step 4. this step restarts DirectoryService, so it becomes aware of newly restored account definitions.
killall HUP DirectoryService
[non-root version: sudo killall HUP DirectoryService ]
note: DirectoryService will recognize the new accounts after a reboot, even without the killall command being issued. I just like to avoid unnecessary rebooting....
now comes the fun part - open up the Accounts Preference Pane in the System Preferences, or close and reopen if already open, and voila, the missing accounts should all be shown again! If you perform a listing of the /Users directory, you'll see the account names instead of UID numbers shown as owner of the account directories once again.
ls -l /Users/
Great! ready to go, right? Almost, but we have to fix the ability to log in for these accounts first, by restoring the shadow password hash files.
Step 5. to restore the hash files, we need to know which ones belong to which account, and which directories to restore from and to. So, in the 'database' window
cd /var/db/shadow/hash/
ls -l
[non-root version: cd /var/db/; sudo ls -l shadow/hash/ ]
in the "TimeMachine" window, assuming you are still in the var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/ directory:
cd ../../../shadow/hash/
ls -l
[non-root version, assumes you are in the var/db/ directory: sudo ls -l shadow/hash/ ]
you should see a bunch of files with filenames consisting of uppercase letters, numbers, and dashes. To determine which file(s) belongs to which account, here is an example for the account "test":
dscl . -read /Users/test GeneratedUID
[non-root version: same as root version of command ]
result should look like:
GeneratedUID: E7FBADC6-CFCB-4B31-88F9-BB6BD1FAEB52
this long string identifies which hash file(s) belongs with the account "test"
from the "TimeMachine" window, copy the hash file back to the system location:
cp -X E7FBADC6-CFCB-4B31-88F9-BB6BD1FAEB52* /var/db/shadow/hash/
[non-root version, all on one line: sudo cp -X shadow/hash/E7FBADC6-CFCB-4B31-88F9-BB6BD1FAEB52* /var/db/shadow/hash/ ]
once this is completed for all the missing accounts, your system should be restored to exactly the condition it was in prior to the user accounts disappearing.
in Solution 3 above, from illude, the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.preferences.accounts.plist is mentioned. I believe this is a file that was generated in Mac OS X 10.4, and maybe 10.5. I'm pretty sure that a clean fresh install of Mac OS X 10.6, on a new partition for example, will *not* have this file. Therefore, it a) may not be present, and b) if present, may have contents that don't represent any accounts created since the installation of Snow Leopard on that machine.
be that all as it may - I wish I'd found this thread topic when this first occurred for me. But since I managed a solution, I thought I'd share, in case anyone finds these methods useful.
cheers,
Roy

Unable to boot normally - Always need to boot with Single User Mode

Hi Community,
Since last few days, I am unable to boot my Macbook Pro normally, running latest version of OS X Yosemite. When I boot, it goes to grey screen with Apple logo and progress bar, once the progress completes to 100% (after 5-10 minutes which is very longer than usual), it asks me to 'Select language' which seems like fresh installation of OS X. In that case, when I click next and it doesn't detect my SSD (blank list of select installation disk/drive).
After reading some threads, I found work-around and always need to boot into Single user mode (by pressing Command+S during power on) and then need to run following commands...
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
"device is write protected" numerous times
reboot
and then only it loads OS X and displays login screen. This happens all the times and I need to follow above steps always to get login screen.
How can I fix this?

Please help me out here. I tried booting it off a USB flash drive with ATV flash but that gave me some errors and prompted me to login with username [email protected] with password frontrow
But I am not sure how to get to login using a suitable input. I tried to telnet it using my PC over network but I dont think it has initialized anything (like wifi or network) at the prompt. Would it take USB keyboard input? All I can do is remove the power and restart it with the usb flash out and get into then get into the recovery loop. I am not sure replacing the hard-drive would help. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Sinu

/sbin/fsck -fy /sbin/mount -uw /

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