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.

Similar Messages

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

How can i download and install lightroom after having formatted the hard disk?

How can I download and install lightroom after having formatted the hard disk?
I have the number of the order.

Lightroom - all versions
Windows
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=113&platform=Windows
Mac
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=113&platform=Macintosh

I want to give away or sell a 6500/250 running 7.6.1. How can the hard disk be erased so that the data are gone, not recoverable? thanks, LifeisRich

I want to give away or sell a 6500/250 running 7.6.1. How can the hard disk be erased so that the data are gone, not recoverable? thanks, LifeisRich

I'd recommend that you check for Mac User Group(s) in Orange County. That's where you'd likely find a diehard Mac fanatic who might want to add your 6500 to his/her collection. Even if you got nothing for it, it would be better than e-cycling it. I upgraded my 6500/275 with what was a "large" hard drive at the time (15 GBs), maxed the memory at 128 MBs, installed the 512K L2 cache card, a better ATI Rage Pro PCI graphics card, a USB PCI card, and an internal 56K modem. With it running OS 9.1, it did all of the pre-OS X stuff I needed it to do. As I previously mentioned, it's a nice-sounding MP3 player. Internet Explorer 5.1.7 (the final release from 2001) kept it useful for surfing the web up until 2005, when it became too outdated/incompatible with many web sites. Unfortunately, the demands of the internet and the need for a modern browser, as well as faster processing to digest it all, are what retired many older Macs from active duty. So my (2) 6500s and (3) 6400s (same tower design) sit in storage. There is one concern that I'll pass along: The motherboard has a 4.5-volt alkaline battery, that's a small, black plastic cube, secured in place by velcro. If your 6500 has been disconnected from electricity for a long time, the battery will undoubtedly be dead. Unlike the many Apple computers that used a small ½AA lithium battery (that I've never seen leak when completely dead), the 6500's battery can and usually does start leaking. Because the motherboard sits vertically oriented on its side edge when installed, the leaking battery will drip alkaline solution down the board, corroding any components in it path. I've seen motherboards ruined from this. If you're going to give it away or sell it, you might want to pull the motherboard (remove the two machine screws on the rear I/O panel, next to the pull tabs). Slide out the board and unplug the battery's small connector (has red & black wires), then lift up on the battery, while holding down the "toothed" velcro mount with something non-conductive, like a popsicle stick. Once it's free, dispose of the battery. If you're interested, a replacement can be purchased for about $5-$7 from battery specialty retailers - it's a Rayovac 870 or 871. Even if you don't replace it, removing one that will eventually leak is a good idea, (hopefully) before any damage is done.

Reinstall but deleting the previous system without formatting the hard disk

HI there, I was wondering if there's a way to reinstall Snow Leopard with the option that Tiger had: install and rename the old system folder and keep existing users. I'm having some issues with my iMac and and don't want to format the hard disk because I don't want to lose some applications and I don't have an external hard disk to make a back up. I tried reinstalling but it seems that it doesn't fix the issues.
Thanks for your help
PERCY

I agree with Allan. However, you should know that with Snow Leopard, a reinstall, not an erase and install, will, by default, give you new system files while retaining everything else. There is no Previous System folder.
I see you already tried that. What issues aren't being fixed?

Mounting a usb hard drive in single user mode

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

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

Mount an external hard drive in single user mode

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

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

Mount external Hard drive in Single user mode

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

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

Mounting 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

Resetting the Admin password in single user mode

Ok, my friend bought an old Imac from someone she went to school with with OS 10.4.2 on it. It works fine except that she can not install any programs because there is an admin password that she does not know. She asked the person she bought it from, he says he doesn't even remember setting a password. Normaly with this issue id just pop in the install disk and reset it from there, except neither of them have the install disk, and my install disk is to current for the machine. Does anyone know how I can reset the admin acount using single user mode commands? I can do it on my Mac Book pro but it doesn't seem to work the same way on 10.4. Please help!
EDIT: It is a Power PC G3 if that helps.
Message was edited by: CartooNxHerO

CartooNxHerO wrote:
Ok, so I used the advice from the third link you gave me but i'm still in single user mode trying to figure out how to delete the users home folders.
Message was edited by: CartooNxHerO
You do not need to delete "the users home folders". Nor do you need to delete the netinfo database. Here are two proceedures:
Change Password
Mac OS X:
Changing or resetting an account password via GUI:
Resetting a user's password
Resetting the original administrator account password
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106156
You do not have a CD/DVD
Changing password from single user mode:
You can also change the administrator's password from single user mode or create a new administrator account.
You need to get into single use mode for steps one and two that are listed below.
This page will tell you how to get into single user mode.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492
Basically, you hold down the command-s key then powering on your machine. The command key has a little apple symbol on the lower left. It is between the alt/option key and the space bar. On a PC keyboard, it will be the windows key, I think.
1) You can change the password on an account. ( Do you know Unix. You are in a Unix single user console. ) The setup commands you need should be listed on the screen. For Mac OS 10.4.11, the commands are:
# Type the follow two instructions to access the startup disk in read/write:
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
# Start up some utility processes that are needed.
sh /etc/rc
# You will probably need to press the return key once the system stops typing.
# To find out the users on the system type, use the list command. The l is a lower case L:
ls /Users
# One of these accounts will be the administrator.
# Pick one of the users which I'll call a-user-name and type it in this command:
passwd a-user-name
# and enter the new user password. You need six characters.
# You will need to enter your password twice. Your typing will not show up on the screen just
# press enter when you complete the typing.
# For cryptic information on these commands try:
man ls
man passwd
The root account isn't enabled by default. I am not sure if changing the password on root will enable it.
2) 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

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

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

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

I changed my wheel group properties to no access at top disk level. I messed up, how can I change back in single user mode "command s" as I am now in Thailand and not able to access startup disks?

I messed up, I changed my "Wheel group" properties to No Access ( or something other than the default) at the top level of my startup disk "Macintosh HD".   Now my computer won't start up, I just get the spinning wheel of death.    I also am in Thailand right now, so I cannot go to a Genius at an apple store, nor do I have startup disks available.
So I was hoping there was a way to change back the properties of my disk (Volume) in single user mode (via Command +s) during startup, i.e. can I do a chmod command on the Macintosh HD listing under the Volume Directory.    Or where do i fix this?   Is it fixable without startup disks, etc...
THANKS FOR ANY HELP!!!!
If you could also please let me know you have an answer, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT!!!
thanks so much
mark
<Edited by Host>

Thomas,
Thanks for the info on command-R, didn't know about that!!!
Yes I changed the sharing "Wheel Group" permissions on my hard drive via Get Info.    But that's all I did.    And then most of the apps wouldn't respond with anything.    So not knowing I did something stupid, I decided to re-boot, and then nothing but the Wheel of Death at startup.
I was trying to limit access to my computer on this network, changed my public folder settings, and then I thought why not the whole hard drive, but at that time I had no idea what the "Wheel Group" was... so I shouldn't have touched it, BUT IT DID ...... argggggg....
I managed to go to an internet cafe & research the problem yesterday.    I used the command +s single mode to get in, and then did the necessary steps to mount the drive so I could make changes.   I basically did this:
Boot into single-user mode (boot while holding down CMD-S)
Follow the on-screen instructions to mount the file system as read-write (a fsck command followed by a mount command)
Type the following: "chmod o+r /" followed by "chmod o+x /"
Type "exit" to leave single user mode and complete the boot sequence.
I found it at this link http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=416180
It worked... thank God!!!   Well so far so good.
I was going to try my own fix by chmod on the Hard drive listed under Volumes directory, but that doesn't seem to match the info under Get Info Window.    So I just used the fix above.    I probably should now go and do "Disk Utility - repair permissions", however I am a little gun shy right now, so I will probably wait until I am back in the States so I can go to an Apple store if it messes up.   Right now I'm following the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" MOTTO...
So Thomas I just wanted to say THANKS for replying so quickly, and I really appreciate your help!!!
(yes I know I shouldn't have used my email addresses, but I WAS DESPERATE, but that's still no excuse)
Hopefully maybe this thread will help someone else out in the future....
Okay, thanks again!
Mark

How to restrict the all access ? Single user mode....

I am doing export/import of schema objects from Windows to Oracle. How to make sure when I do the export in the migration database no one else is modifying the data. Is there any single user mode so that I can be sure of only one connection while exporting?
Oracle 10g R2 on Windows Server.
Thank you,
Smith

Perhaps you are not familiar with the concept of multi-version read consistency.
No one can see that which is not committed and reads can never be blocked.
If you want a system where no one can see things kill their sessions and do a STARTUP RESTRICT.

HT1492 Does anyone knows how to change the keyboard layout in single user mode, please ?

Hello,
The question is in the title.
Thank you.

The only way you might do it is use one of the Unix editors to edit the plist file it gets the settings from once it boots in the GUI mode. 'vi' is present in all Macs, and you might have pico, nano, emacs, or ed depending on what was installed. The keyboard layout while in single user mode itself I think is generic to where the Mac was bought and what keyboard was ordered with it, when it came from the store. Since you posted in the 10.3 or earlier forum, chances are if this has changed, few people would know for certain. If you have a newer Mac, say 2006 or later, you should really post in the correct forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2463

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

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

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

How format the hard disk in single-user mode

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