Format HDD in single user

I have two SCSI ultra-wide drives that were written with all zeros on a Windows computer (not mine). I want to install them in my Mac that has an ultra-wide PCI card. The drives spin fine and I am familiar with ID setup so that's not my worry. In 10.2.8, they are not seen by Disk Utility. In OS 9, they are seen by SCSI Probe and both are "logical units not supported" which means they have no allocation yet. I am comfortable using commands in single-user mode and all my data is backed up so I have no fear or worries. I just want to know the command string to allocate the logical unit to the drives.
I know this would be a snap if I had access to a Windows computer with a SCSI card but let's not go there yet. Let's just see if we can do this purely on the Mac 10.2.8 system.

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

Similar Messages

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

How format the hard disk in single-user mode

Hi all, i would like to format the internal hard disk of my macbook pro 13'' through single-user mode. How can I do it, please?

Ok, to do that you need to hold c and boot off the 10.6 installer disk and second screen in under the Utilities Menu is Disk Utility.
You can then select the hard drive makers name (your "bare metal") and peform the wipe/format of the entire drive or a "partition" on that drive.
In the picture below there is only one partition, the Mac HD. In the picture above there are two partitions which both would show up under the hard drive makers name and both or either partition can be wiped in Disk Utility.
Use the Security Option to Zero your hard drive of all lingering data.
When you Quit Disk utiltiy, your back in the installer and can quit or install OS X.
Note: messing with Disk utility will erase all data on the drive, if there is something you need to recover better stop and ask!
If you don't see your internal boot drive in Disk Utility, the drive is dead.

Format mac hd in single user mode.

Several have asked this question. I haven't seen anybody actually answer it. People start asking, "why would you want to do that? You really don't want to, instead you should..." I really want to. I have explored all the options available. I don't really want to get into why. I just want to know how. Please.

As I attempted to suggest, solutions like Recovery Partition or booting from the installation cd are not available. I have been working on this for some months.
For others in a similar situation, I find I can run diskutil by running these commands first
mount -uw /
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.notifyd.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.configd.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.diskmanagementd.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.diskarbitrationd.plist
Single User Mode boots onto the OSX Base System partition. Since I want to format the Recovery Partition, the operation seems doable. And once I have diskutil loaded into memory, formatting the OBS partion might be possible too. Will work on that.
In the meantime, How do I boot from Apple servers?

Kernel panic on MacPro in Single-User mode after memtest.

I've had about 7 kernel panics in about 7 days on a new MacPro. 2 gigs of RAM (Apple Installed). Fresh install of OSX (no user import). While going through the troubleshooting process I ran memtest in single user mode. Ran it all night no errors.
So in the morning I typed ctrl-c and then exit (i think)... it seemed to start the process of booting and I got another kernal panic. I've actually done this three times now.
I checked panic.log and all the error messages but 1 were the same. Including the ones I got in single-user mode (copied below).
Should I be able to gracefully exit out of single-user mode without a kernel panic?
Does this point to a RAM error even though memtest and AHD for that matter ran all night without finding anything?
I'm all set to try again (taking careful notes this time) to see if I can reproduce but I was hoping for some feedback first.
Thanks,
Craig
Sat Jan 27 22:17:27 2007
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x41C47CC4): Uncorrectable Fbd memory error detected. ferr = 20000000 , nerr == 00000000, fErrFat = 20000000 nErrFat == 00000000
Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x108cd8 : 0x128d08 (0x3c9a74 0x108cfc 0x131de5 0x0)
0x108d18 : 0x41c47cc4 (0x41c49f1c 0x20000000 0x0 0x20000000)
0x108da8 : 0x41c47f58 (0x406a180 0x406a180 0x2 0x820044)
0x108e38 : 0x66a712 (0x406a180 0x0 0x3ba3680 0x0)
0x108e68 : 0x66a59b (0x3b92780 0x0 0x0 0x1c)
0x108e88 : 0x67d9be (0x1c 0x108ef8 0x8 0x67f4be)
0x108eb8 : 0x67db68 (0x3b91b1c 0x17 0x3b928ca 0x3b81120)
0x108f18 : 0x68a743 (0x3b34348 0x0 0xafdd0c77 0x4cd5)
0x108f38 : 0x70a4fb (0x3b34348 0x0 0x3abac80 0x0)
0x108f68 : 0x67053f (0x3b88600 0x0 0x3b87580 0x49)
0x108f88 : 0x669c1f (0x3b6b800 0x0 0x3b87580 0x49)
0x108fa8 : 0x3ba298 (0x3b87100 0x0 0x3b92f00 0x49)
0x108fe8 : 0x19aa80 (0x25423e30 0x25423e30 0x19bad6 0xb26000)
0x25423f18 : 0x1a445b (0x10 0x1 0x4af85c 0x6)
0x25423f38 : 0x19d871 (0x0 0x0 0x25423f68 0x206)
0x25423f58 : 0x135f14 (0x0 0x0 0x0 0x19d23a) Backtrace continues...
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AppleMCEDriver(1.1.2f1)@0x41c44000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.2.0)@0x664000
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC(1.2.0)@0x709000
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform(1.0.8)@0x668000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x57d000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.2.0)@0x664000
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.8.4: Sun Oct 29 15:26:54 PST 2006; root:xnu-792.16.4.obj~1/RELEASE_I386
MacPro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Yes, your memory or memory slot, or memory seating is bad or off. "Uncorrectable Fbd memory error detected. ferr = 20000000 , nerr == 00000000, fErrFat = 20000000 nErrFat == 00000000"
Clearly a memory related issue. It may also be that memtest doesn't know how to diagnose the new kind of memory and is reporting that back to the logs. Take it in to a service center to have all the boards replaced to make sure the issue isn't reproduceable with new memory. If it is, then I'd consider the slots on the logicboard a problem.

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

I forgot my admin password for my macbook and my macbook doesnt allowme to go on single user or boot up in safe mode or boot up with the option key all it does is show a image of a globe blinking everytime i try to do something

please people help me i brought this macbook from a friend and now its ****** up its a macbook late 2006 and it dosesnt allow me to do anything everytime i click on a key to go on single user terminal or boot up cd or run on safe mode it shows a image of a globe(earth)

Somehow the HDD is screwed up. Data saving issue is not directly Toshiba related issue and before you spend time here discussing about such things I recommend you to ask someone with good PC knowledge what can be done about data saving.
When the HDD is in the notebook again start notebook as first step set BIOS to default settings.
After doing this install recovery image. After doing this you will have clean preinstalled OS and everything should work properly again.
I hope you will be able to do this using HDD recovery option.
How to do this you can find on http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/HTD1303440001R01.htm
Have you maybe created recovery discs?

Single-User Mode Copying Files/System Does not Boot Past Apple Logo Screen

I have a Macbook 2.0GHZ, 2GB RAM, that recently tried to download a secuirty and keynot update. Following the download the system will no longer boot past the Apple Logo Screen with the spinning wheel. I do not have access to a OS disk yet or to a firewire cable either. I've have seen posts from others that describe how to use traget disk mode to reinstall the secuirty update manually and then they can boot their computer. Safe mode will not work. I did boot into single-user mode and run the disk utility there and it says my HD is OK. Since I do not have a firewire or an OS Disk, I am wondering if there is a way to copy those files i need to a USB pen stick then install them onto the computer via single-user mode, considering this is the only way I can boot and manipulate the machine at this time. If this is not possible please let me know so I can find a way to scrounge up a firewire cable or disk. Thank you in advance for any assistance.
Ted K

Thanks to Limnos and BDAqua I know you guys have helped others with these kind of problems from the other posts I read. I just want to list what I did exactly in case anyone wants to try to do this with a usb drive or does not have access to a boot disk or firewire cable.
1: Install security update on a pen drive
2: Boot in single user mode, CMD-S on startup
3: /sbin/mount -uw /
4: mkdir /Volumes/usb (usb can be any name, name of usb drive or anything you want)
5: ls /dev (you need to get the drive listing for the usb drive to mount it appropriately, it should be disk#s# but this is close to what the HD and Cd drives are listed as so you may need to list once before you put the usb stick in and once ater. I had issues inserting the usb drive in single-user mode and it would freeze up the root drive)
6: /sbin/mount_msdos /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/usb (this mounts the usb drive, i had to use msdos because of how my usb drive was formatted, you may need to check your usb drive format, hfs is the apple format for usb drives but it did not work for me)
7: cp /Volumes/usb/SecUpd2009-001Intel.dmg (this copies the files from the usb drive to the root drivel, at this point you no longer need the usb drive)
8: hdiutil mount /SecUpd2009-001Intel.dmg (this mounts the disk image)
9: cd /Volumes/"Security Update 2009-001" (after i mounted the image this is how it appeared in the Volumes directory, you might need to do ls /Volumes to get the name, the quotes are important to get the whole file directory changed)
10: installer -pkg SecUpd2009-001Intel.pkg -target / (this installs the acutal update, i used the SecUpd2009-001Intel.pkg and it worked though I think you might be able to use "Security Update 2009-001" with quotes as well.)
11: reboot
i hope this helps anyone looking to do this. Thanks again to those who helpes and all the other posts that had information that helped me identify and then fix my issue! I still love my mac.

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!).

Yosemite only boots in single user mode?!

Hello everyone,
for a few weeks now I've had issues with unresponsive wakes and whatnot but now it seems my machine has detiorated within a short walk home.
First off my specs:
MBP 13" mid 2012
Core i5 2,5Ghz, Intel HD4000
2x 4gb Ram 1600MHz
Samsung 840 Evo 120Gb SSD
As I said, within 20 minutes of carrying the laptop around the performance deteriorated drastically. When I opened it up back home it was incredibly slow and unresponsive. Opening Applications or even just folders takes about 30-60 seconds. Same applies for using the brightness controls for screen and keyboard, or the volume buttons. After some 15 minutes the System will completely stop to react to startup attempts of applications.
I tried the following troubleshoots while searching the forums as I understand this is a common problem in Yosemite:
- boot in safe mode ( worked once, but with the same problems of unresponsiveness, after a second try booting hangs at the usual 50%)
- reset SMC
- reset NVRAM ( PRAM?)
- try to repair the disk via disk recovery ( cmd + r)( repair failed and Volume vanished from the list - after that only internet recovery was available) ( also of note: today I brought my SSD up to its limit by installing unreal engine 4. I deleted it expecting to see an improvement, which I didn't get. Still, after deinstalling it the Volume showed a 99% utilization in disk recovery)
- starting single user mode and this is interesting. First it shows the following without any input:
Warning: Couldn't block sleep during cache update
Warning: Proceeding without DlskArb
rebuilding .../Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/kernelcache
pci pause: SDXC
IOBluetoothHostControllerUARTTransport.kext has no Info.plist file.
IOBluetoothHostControllerUARTTransport.kext has no Info.plist file.
IOBluetoothHostControllerUARTTransport.kext has no Info.plist file.
IOBluetoothHostControllerUARTTransport.kext has no Info.plist file.
IOBluetoothHostControllerUARTTransport.kext has no Info.plist file.
kext file:///System/Library/Extensions/JMlcromATA.kext/ is in hash exception list, allowing to load
Child process / user/sbin/kextcache[6] exited due to signal 11.
Error 107 rebuilding /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.cashes/Startup/kernelcache
then it proceeds to boot into the same unresponsive mess as before.
- In the finder I tried to repair disk permissions and again the volume itself to no avail.
I really have no idea what to do about it at this point. I can recreate this scenario and reliably boot this way but the system is painfully slow and impossible to work with. Sorry to bring up this topic again since there have been so many posts on similar problems but none of the aforementioned solutions worked for me.

Please do the following:
Install or Reinstall OS X from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
      the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
           because it is three times faster than wireless.
This should install the version of OS X that you had installed.

Won't boot normally or in recovery and single user mode, safe mode hangs up halfway

iMac locked up with visual glitches while playing the Mac beta client of League of Legends. Had to force a shutdown by holding the power button. Now it won't boot; after the Apple logo and spinning wheel I just get a white screen. I tried launching in recovery mode, that didn't work. Then I tried safe mode; the bar filled a little over half and then nothing but white screen. I was able to boot single user mode once; ran fsck -fy and rebooted, still white screen. Now I can't get back to single user mode. I booted with command option P R to reset the NVRAM and got the second chime, but still nothing.
Luckily all my important files are in the cloud, but I'm really hoping my computer isn't completely dead. I haven't had any issues in the past. I've even been playing LoL for over a month with no issues, until now when I tried to play the newer game types, Dominion and ARAM; both caused visual glitches forcing shutdowns. I was able to restart my computer with no problem after the first two visual glitches, but after the last one I am stuck at the white screen as I described above.
Thanks in advance for your help!

I'd bet the drive is damaged. You could try reformatting if possible. Again, you are booting from the Recovery-10.8.2 disk if you can. If you can't, then you will need to use the installer disc that came with the computer.
Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
        the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

How to Restore from Time Machine in Single-user mode?

Hi there, I am trying to fix a Macbook Pro that has had its /private folder trashed and emptied. Obviously it won't boot unless you you boot in to Single User mode and I'm wondering if its possible to do a Time Machine restore from the terminal, I would need the 2nd more recent Time Machine image which is sitting on a Firewire HDD.
I was going to just see if I could find the orignal OSX install disk and just do a fresh install of the OS which I don't mind doing (since everything important is backed up in Dropbox), but I can't seem to find the CD anywhere nearby, so the Time Machine option would be much preferred.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Not sure if this is related enough, but I just wrestled trying to restore from time machine too, trying to reinstall 10.5.8 after putting a new HD in my MBP, 2006 vintage.
That took sooooo long to get back to where I was before swapping disks; what did the trick was ordering a free copy of Snow Leopard install disk (free due to Apple trying to push people from idisk to icloud) which was rushed FedEx (yay) and which allowed me to access Time Machine where my ancient original OSX install disk had not.
And all it took was 2 weeks of cursing!

Stuck in single user mode and can not get past it

I am experiencing a problem I recently had lent me a Mac g4 tower. I decided to upgrade to tiger and accidentally set the start-up preference to the disc, every time I boot up it goes into single user mode, if I boot up holding the option key it brings up 3 icons on the right is an arrow in a circle formation which is refresh at a guess in the middle is the hard drive which is depressed kind of thing and on the right is a straight arrow. I have tried selecting each of these individually and even pressing enter all but the refresh icon goes back into single user mode. When the disc is in and I go to this it does not ring up the disc as an option.
I have zapped the PRAM reset the CUDA button and even telling it to reset the NRAM etc.
I have tried it with the disk in and out and all paths lead to the same outcome it starts up I hear the tone and the screen goes grey with an apple icon on then it goes to lack screen saying localhost:/root#.
I have also used the (fsck –fy) in single user mode to scan the disk and it says it appears to be ok. I have done all these steps multiple times but I am still getting the same outcome.
I have also tried pulling the logic battery and pressing the cuda switch and leaving it to stand and even pulling the RAM but this has not worked and I am still getting the same out come of been put straight in to single user mode.
I have tried starting up in safe mode but again this just goes to single user mode as well.
As yet I have not tried booting up using this machine as a slave drive or using another Mac as a slave drive and seeing what this out come does as I have not got access to another Mac at this time.
Unfortunately I do not have the original discs that came with the machine either so can not even boot from them.
Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated thank you.
Please read my post properly thanks.
I have tried several key commands such has D, C and even holding (option, command, shift and delete) when i do this it just brings up a folder with two changing flashing icons.

Ok checked them out and followed the instructions given, but still getting the same outcome, looked at the system log and it tells me.
localhost login: PAM pam_inithandlers:no default config /etc/pam.d/other
localhost login:PAM error reading PAM configuration file
localhost login:PAM pam_start:failed to initialize handlers
localhost shutdown: halt by andy
Any more ideas???

Mounting Windows Disk within Single User Mode

A Windows machine I administer kacked and the users didn't back up all their data. Windows won't touch the drive, so I popped it in a 10.3.9 Mac... I can copy a handful of files and folders from the Finder, but some directories won't read -- there may be physical damage to the drive (if the kernel panics are any indication).
When I boot into Single User Mode, I can't get into the disk.... the disk(s) show up under /Volumes, but you can't actually get into them... only a file named .autodiskmounted shows up for each Windows partition. I'm guessing this is a product of the disk being formatted as a NTFS drive (I'm thinking that's probably what Windows XP Home used on this drive).
Can you mount a NTFS or FAT32 disk from Single User Mode? How?
Many thanks!

Everett
To mount a disk in 10.3.9, look at the first part of this FAQ: Resetting the System Immutable Flag in 10.3.
You will need to replace the "mount -t hfs" with "mount -t msdos", but I don't know if you would need further options.
If you can find a 10.4 system, it may be easier, since "autodiskmount" appears to work again. See: kmosx4: Resetting the System Immutable Flag in OS X 10.4

Mac mini i5 mid 2011 always boot in single user mode...how to get out of this?

my mac mini always boot into single user mode
how can i revert back to normal boot screen?
i tried formatting the hard disk and clean install of mac os x 10.9.2 but nothing change..
pls help
mac mini ...core i5 @2.3 ghz mid 2011 model
thanks in advance

Restart the computer with the Option, Command, P, and R keys held down. Release them upon the second startup chime.
(110762)

Format HDD in single user

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