How do change boot disk from single user mode?

My G5 hangs when booting at the blue screen while "Loading printing services...". Attempting to boot into safe mode only hangs at the grey gear screen. It will, however, successfully boot into single user mode. I've run fsck but no change in bootability. I have another disk in the machine that has Tiger on it. How do I change the boot disk from the single user prompt?

You can hold c and boot off the installer disk and select disk utility repair disk/permissions
or you can hold option to boot off Mac OS X on another drive, like a clone and run Data Rescue to recvoer your files.
It does sound bad, you can try going through these
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464
But I think you'll need a fresh install, hopefully you have been backing up/cloning to a external drive.
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/Personal11.html

Similar Messages

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.

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

Repairing disk permissions from single user mode

I accidentally changed the disk permissions on my Macintosh HD to "none" for everyone, except system and admin, who both still have read/write/exec privileges. Now, my Mac won't boot up. What can I do to fix this from single user mode or verbose mode?

Hi,
if you reboot your mac and press Command -R you can start in recovery mode and repair the permissions.
here you can find how to proceed http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

IMac G5 won't boot in normal and safe mode, but will from single-user mode

Hello everyone,
I'm quite new here, so I try to do my best if you have a question.
Yesterday, someone nearby me had a iMac G5 (Powermac8,1), and he sayd, that the computer sometimes will boot, sometimes not.
I did test it, I thought it was running fine, but when I played some music in iTunes, it was stuck on 9 seconds, and crashed (with a kernel panic). The guy also sayd, that there was nothing important on the computer, so a clean install was fine.
Now, the problem is, that it will not boot in normal mode (without anything pressed on boot), also it won't in safe mode (shift-boot), but it will, when I enter single-user mode, mount the hard drive and exit from single-user mode so it will go futher on booting. Sometimes it will not, and immediately gives you a kernel panic in single-user mode, but it will 90 percent of the time.
Then you've got another problem: when it's running in the normal desktop from single-user mode, it'll be stuck after some time again. If I look into the Kernel Panic file created, most times it's because of Spotlight indexing, so I disabled that.
He also gave me the disks (Apple Hardware Test and Extra Applications, and iMac G5 Mac OS X Install Disks 1-3) that came with the Mac. He sayd that I could use them, but I think he didn't test out the SuperDrive, because when I insert a disk, it will try to read, but it will make 2 same sounds, and quits after 10 tries, when it will spit the cd out. Also normal (audio) disks.
Also, I must hurry with the commands for mounting and exiting in single-user mode, or it will just not boot.
In all cases, after 30-45 seconds from pressing the power button, the fan will start blowing at full speed, and it will stop after the exit command in Single-user mode. That's weird.
I can't do anything with the SuperDrive, I can't normally boot in Mac OS X except for Single-user mode (but I don't think he would like to do that every time the computer boots up), and I have very limited time when Mac OS X arrived on the desktop.
When booting in Verbose mode, it will be stuck on this:
AppleSMU::PMU vers = 0x000d004c, SPU vers = 0x15, SDB vers = 0x01,
(and sometimes ends with a kernel crash by fsck_hfs)
Things I've tried (without any success):
- /sbin/fsck -fy (in single-user mode)
- Disabling Spotlight and mds
If you want some more information, feel free to ask!
Greetings
-MrYoranimo
PS: My main language is Dutch, so my English can be bad at some points.

Thank you for your support! This reply is a little bit late, because I was to the camping this weekend.
The only thing I sure do know, is that the iMac has a bad SuperDrive. That's one problem, but I don't really wanna use it, and you fix everything by Single-user mode and when I get to the desktop to test things and change stuff in the Preference Panes.
What also came to my mind was that there also is a problem with the videocard (driver), because sometimes when I boot into Single-user mode, I can see some white pixels which aren't supposed to be there. And when booting from SUM you can see that some of the colors are different and there are weird patterns on the screen.
I also tried to setup a NetBoot server on this computer (MacBook Mid 2010) with just Lion 10.7.4 on it, but I'm not that expert and I didn't really find the good posts on the Internet, although I tried it with the Server applications and both Server applications and DeployStudio. But I didn't succeed.
I don't really like buying a new FireWire hard disk or external FireWire dvd reader/writer, except if it has USB support, because my MacBook doesn't support FireWire, and I really wanna make use of it then.
If I know more or have fixed it, I will surely post again here with what I did to fix it (if no one else has posted here already ).

Getting a "key" prompt when booting up in single user mode!!

I bought my used macbook pro about a week ago without the original cd's and manuals. I installed the boot camp package but rebooted without creating the drivers disk to do this later. When my macbook boots up now it passes the apple icon with the twirling round arrow, then it stays at the Mac OS X box forever. How do I fix this without the tiger CD.
I have tried booting up in single user mode and it takes me to a "key" prompt. Anything i type does not come up. I read the troubleshooting and it sayd that it should through me to a # sign instead so i can perform a "fsck --y" funtion.
Please help restore my Macbook!!
CM

I waited 15min at the key prompt when booting in single user mode and it unlocked the command prompt.
I guess it's some sort of security feature for the root.

Saving from Single User Mode???

ok, so my computer *****, and i just want to reformat the drive and start from scratchville.
is there any way to have a USB Thumbdrive or external hard drive attached and move files from single user mode to the thumb drive to store it. and then once i get my system disk reformat or reinstall the operating system.
i cannot login to my computer any other way besides single user. i have run FSCK and nothing.
all im trying to do is move files so i dont have to worry about losing all of my music, photos, and documents.

WeeManG4:
i cannot login to my computer any other way besides single user.
Have you tried Firewire Target Disk Mode?
cornelius

How to change a photo from 32 bit mode to 16/8 bit mod in Photoshop cs6?

How to change a photo from 32 bit mode to 16/8 bit mod in Photoshop cs6?
I tried to go to Image- Mod but i cant press on Mod button..
I saw to late that i cant save the image i created with 32bit mode.
Please help..

In the image menu, goto the mode sub menu, then choose 8 or 16 bit.

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

Freezing with blue screen & can't boot from single user mode or disk

My keyboard is wired and plugged directly into my Intel iMac running OSX 10.5.8. I do not have the Leopard disks, but I do have the Tiger disks. I was trying to boot in single-user mode so that I could run AppleJack to try to fix another issue I'm having--I get the light blue startup screen flashed at me several times daily for the past week or so. When the blue screen flashes, it totally freezes my computer (obviously) and lasts from 1-10 seconds. I can't find anything that is triggering it. I haven't installed anything new that I'm aware of, and it happens whether the computer has previously been slept or not. I'm also not using an external display / additional monitor.
Also, for anyone who is nice enough to answer, please explain everything--I'm not an expert user.

Well since it is so time consuming and a security risk to turn off FileVault, I was hoping to hear from someone with more experience if this was the solution, or just something to "try"? Are you speaking from experience or just making a suggestion, leroydouglas? Thanks.

How to change sheduled jobs from one users to other user?

Hi,
I want to change shoulded jobs from one users to other user.
Is there any way that we change job from one user to other user.
apart procedure with sm37: single job selecting with copy option.
Regards,
Gianluca Vinco

Hi,
Please try the folloiwng for changing the User of a Scheduled job:
1. Go to transaction SM37, select the 'Scheduled' Job by checking the check box and then use the menu path Job -
> Change
2. You may reach the Change Job xxx screen. Here, click on the Step button
3. You may reach the Step List Overview screen
4. Here select the step in the list and click on the Change icon to make the User change in the pop up Edit Step window
I hope this helps you in your work.
Best Regards
Sitaraman

Can boot to disk in single user mode. But not regular boot.

I setup an alias called md-rootdisk for booting my Solaris 10 System on a V440.
I tried to reboot using the alias md-rootdisk twice. It only worked once.
The first attempt was to single user mode. The sytem booted but there was a krtld error.
The Second attempt was a regular boot.
I'm trying to figure out why the first attempt "worked" and the 2nd didn't.
The details are below.
First Boot_
{1} ok boot -s md-rootdisk
Boot device: /pci@1f,700000/scsi@2/disk@0,0:a File and args: -s md-rootdisk
krtld: Unused kernel arguments: `md-rootdisk'.
SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_120011-14 64-bit
Second boot_
{1} ok boot md-rootdisk
Boot device: pci@1f,700000/scsi@2/disk@0,0:a File and args:
Can't locate boot device
{1} ok boot md-rootdisk

If the disk is a normal disk, this will get you to single user mode:
boot disk -s
In the second case, it looks like there is something wrong with the device path aliased.

Errors while Changing the Database to Mutli User Mode from Single user mode in SQL Server 2012

Hi,
Good Afternoon :). Need your help in resolving one of the issue with SQL Server 2012.
Today, we kept one of the database in the Single User mode and wanted to bring back to Multi User mode. But we are getting the below error. There are no user sessions connected to this database which are blocking each other. I see multiple
SYSTEM sessions are in blocked state.  The blocking is not cleared even affter restarting the SQL services.
Verified the SQL Server Errorlog and couldnt get much useful information to troubleshoot the issue.
pasted the information from the sys.sysprocesses as well for your kind reference.
Msg 1205, Level 13, State 68, Line 1
Transaction (Process ID 55) was deadlocked on lock resources with another process and has been chosen as the deadlock victim. Rerun the transaction.
Msg 5069, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
ALTER DATABASE statement failed.
spid
kpid
blocked
waittype
waittime
dbid
login_time
status
cmd
18
1004
36
0x0005
144
5
4/9/2014 13:13
background
TASK MANAGER
35
1796
36
0x0005
35
5
4/9/2014 13:34
background
TASK MANAGER
36
2464
37
0x0005
363
5
4/9/2014 13:34
background
TASK MANAGER
37
5100
36
0x0005
254
5
4/9/2014 13:04
background
TASK MANAGER

Clearly 36 and 37 are causing deadlock.
see
https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/database-administration/handling-deadlocks-in-sql-server/
http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1036/finding-and-troubleshooting-sql-server-deadlocks/
Please Mark This As Answer if it helps to solve the issue Visakh ---------------------------- http://visakhm.blogspot.com/ https://www.facebook.com/VmBlogs

Help needed: Lion boots only in single user mode after a kasperksy unsuccefull installation

Hello everyboby,
I used to be a Sun Solaris sysadmin with root privileges, but I can't fix the Macbook of my girlfriend...
WHAT I WISHED:
I wished I could restore the boot INI/config files of a MacBook (the old one, made of white plastic, not the pro, made of "steel"), so that Lion started at boot, like it used to do, before a "fatal" kasperky installation.
WHAT HAPPENS:
the macbook plays the chord, shows the Apple logo, seems to load the OS (Lion) and then switches to graphic mode, BUT the desktop (is "desktop" the name of the screen of the operating system, once it's fully started, like on a PC?) doesn't appear, only a grey screen, then nothing happens.
I guess that probably Lion is fully running under the grey screen, but without the screen/video been correctly setup, I cannot interact with the notebook.
I CAN boot in single user mode, mount the file system in writing mode and read and write the disk.
WHAT HAPPENED:
my girlfriend upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard and used the notebook for a while (one month?), then she decided to upgrade kaspersky, but the installation failed somehow and now the notebook is stuck.
WHAT I TRIED TO DO:
- I read this: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystem Startup/Chapters/CustomLogin.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000172i-SW10-BAJCGEGG
- and that: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man5/launchd.conf.5.html#//apple_ref/doc/man/5/launchd.conf
- and removed from the disk all the folders and files dealing with startup items AND kaspersky, but nothing changed: at boot the grey screen appears and Lion's interface is not loaded (or if it is, it's not shown).
- then I looked for some logs, found the kernel's one and found something that looks like an error message dealing with video inizialization... So, it really seems something is not working at video level.
WHAT I AM ASKING YOU:
some help, please... : is there anybody that can give me some specific advice on how the boot is done on a macbook with Lion? Are there some INI files I can copy into the macbook, so that it starts in grphic mode?
whatever...
thank you in advance!
Dario

Linc Davis wrote:
I used to be a Sun Solaris sysadmin...
Then you backed up
I didn't: it's my girlfriend's notebook and she not using a timemachine external disk. She did all by herself

Data back up from Single User Mode

Hello,
I have a problem with my 700 MHz iBook, dual USB, with OS X 10.3.9.
Unfortunately the OS doesn't start up because of "overlapped extent allocation" problem...
I would like to re-install the complete OS but before doing it, I would like to back up some directories.
Is it possible to save some data, by connecting an Ipod or some sort of external peripheral, from the Single User mode?
If yes, how can I do it?
Thank you in advance from your kind support.

Before giving up the ghost check out these:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25770.
Manually fix Overlapped Extent Allocation Errors without Disk Warrior
Overlapped overlapped extent allocation errors can be the bane of any Mac user's existence. Often, these errors go unnoticed until the problem becomes visible: your Mac might refuse to boot, crash unexpected, or worse, critical data might disappear from the Finder. Disk Utility can detect, but not fix overlapped extent allocation errors, and certain third-party utilities, such as Alsoft Diskwarrior, can fix them, but generally without reporting the consequences.
Overlapped extent allocation error occur when the file system thinks that two files are occupying the same area on the hard disk, hence overlapping on the same "inode," which is the structure which holds the location of the data blocks the file occupies, and also file permissions and flags.
Clearing the "overlapped" or "overallocated" extent allocation essentially means that you'll have to lose some data, because the only way to remove the overlap is to delete the file that's occupying the inode. So, if you suspect, or find out, that the guilty file is a critical system file that resides in one of the hidden system directories such as /etc /var /usr/ or visible system directories such as /System or /Library, and you don't want to reinstall the whole OS (which might not fix the overlapped extent allocation anyway), it's good to have another disk available to copy the files back to your original disk if necessary: a second bootable hard drive or a firewire drive connected to your Mac when you remove the misbehaving file. Just make sure that when you copy the file back to your boot disk that the permissions are correct, so it's best to use the "ditto" command, so that all sticky bits, flags, and permissions are preserved.
In case you didn't know, you don't have to boot from an install CD in order to check for overlapped extent allocations. All you need to do is restart your Mac, while holding down command + S to boot in "single-user mode."
At the command prompt that appears, type:
$ fsck -fy
If you have an overlapped extent allocation, you'll see:
"Overlapped Extent Allocation" (File 123456d)
No matter how many times you run fsck -fy, you'll never be rid of the error.
So, simply issue the following command:
find / -inum 123456 -print
Note the "d" was dropped, or any extra letter that appears after the inode number.
The find will return a file name that matches with the inode number, and the path to that file. If you remove the file then the fsck will not return this error next time you run it.
However, before you can delete the file(s) in single-user mode, you'll need to mount the file system. Type:
$ mount -uw /
When done, issue the "sync" command, and that will flush the write cache so that all pending writes are written from memory to the disk. Also, since most OS X 10.3 Macs use the HFS+ Journaled file system, it might be a good idea to disable the journal before booting into single-user mode by typing:
$ sudo diskutil disableJournal /
then re-enable it when done fixing the overlapped extents and rebooting normally:
$ sudo diskutil enableJournal /
Chris Anderson is a long-time Linux propellerhead who just got his first Mac, an ibook G4, and can't keep his hands off of it. He currently works as a "The Architect" and general visionary for a maker of world-class collectibles.
If you own Disk Warrior then it should be able to repair a drive with overlapped extents.
There are two backup utilities included in Unix - psync and rsync. You will find them in the /usr/bin/ directory. For documentation simply enter: man psync or man rsync. In order to write data while in single-user mode you need to issue the command: /sbin/mount/ -uw / (Note: there is a "space" between the "uw" and the "/".) To mount an external drive you will need to provide the mountpoint for it in place of the "/", e.g., "/Volumes/volname") without the quotes.

How do change boot disk from single user mode?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for