How to mount one of two external drives on startup without login

I have a Mac Mini that runs as a server on my network.  It has two external USB drives attached: one contains documents, and the other is a TimeMachine backup of the server.  Neither disk mounts on a machine on the network until a user interactively logs in, but I would like one of them to be mounted at startup of a MacBook Pro on the network running OS X Mavericks 10.9.3.
The following script was suggested at <https://discussions.apple.com/message/5770284#5770284> in response to a desire to mount all external FireWire drives running under OS X 10.5 Leopard:
You can do this with the following command (note: it will ask for your admin password):
sudo cat >/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.plist <<"EOF"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key><true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF
I have two questions about this command:
1.  Is it valid for OS X Mavericks 10.9.3?
2.  Can it be modified to mount only one of the external disks attached to the server (the one containing documents)?
Thanks in advance for your kind assistance with these questions.
Best wishes,
Stuart
Stuart A. Forsyth
<Email Edited by Host>

I can now confirm this file
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.plist
does automatically get created on Mavericks Servers but not on non-Server Mavericks machines. It is possible to create it on non-Server Mavericks machines and reports are this works as expected.
Obviously the fact it is created automatically by Server.app on Mavericks servers means Mavericks still supports this.
Rather than hand-editing the file as per the original tip the following will achieve the same goal but will result in a binary format plist file which is what Server.app would create.
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool true

Similar Messages

  • How to mount external drives on startup without login?

    I have a Mac Mini that runs as a server on my network. It has external FireWire drives attached, and I need them to be mounted at machine startup. By default they do not mount until a user interactively logs in.
    There was a fix for this in Tiger, involving a NetInfo setting; but since NetInfo Manager and niutil are now gone, I don't know how to make this work. I can mount the drive manually by sshing into the Mini and using a diskutil mount command, but that is very cumbersome and doesn't make the drive available for startup activities that need to access it.
    Tx!
    KeS

    Create the file
    /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.plist
    with the following contents:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
    <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key><true/>
    </dict>
    </plist>
    You can do this with the following command (note: it will ask for your admin password):
    sudo cat >/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.plist <<"EOF"
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
    <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key><true/>
    </dict>
    </plist>
    EOF

  • HT201250 How to Use One Time Machine External Drive to Back Up Two Macs

    How do I set up two computers -- an iMac and a MacBook, both running Mountain Lion -- to use a single external hard drive for Time Machine backups?
    Both are on an Airport Extreme network

    Yes, it does.
    I took it from there and the iMac is now backing up its contents on the HD.
    Thanks very much for your knowledgeable and prompt help.
    Best regards,
    ed

  • One of two external drives never does incremental after unplugging

    I've been fighting this for weeks and I am totally buffaloed.
    I have a Dell PowerEdge 2900 running Small Business Server 2008. I've been using Windows Server Backup with BackupAssist as a "front-end" for years. I have two nominally identical eSATA external enclosures, each with a Hitachi HDS724040ALE640 4 TB
    disk. I don't recall how long I've had these but it's been a while. I swap them out pretty much every day, and back up to the attached disk every day of the week.
    A few weeks ago I added another 500GB to my PERC-6 RAID-5 array. At the same time I changed my backup strategy. I had the two external disks formatted with two partitions, one for the image backup and one for data from other servers. I decided to have only
    one partition and only do image backups but put the backups from the other servers into a folder on the main server so they wind up in the image.
    Ever since then, if I unplug one of the disks (call it disk A) and plug in the other disk (call it disk B) and let the scheduled backup run, and then remove disk B, plug in disk A, and let the scheduled backup run, disk A winds up with only the most recent
    backup on it. Disk B, OTOH, accumulates backups as expected and as before the switch. And disk A accumulates multiple backups as long as it remains plugged in (e.g. over the weekend).
    Both disks reports SMART data in the green. An intensive multi-day surface check with Victoria doesn't show an bad or even problematic sectors. I've reformatted many times, and deleted and re-created the partition a couple of times.
    BackupAssist tech support can't figure out what's happening. I've tried to test with using WSB directly but I haven't come up with any useful results becasue I don't really understand how to set up a rotating-media backup in WSB. I've done various checks and
    repairs with wbadmin without any joy. It seems pretty unlikely that the problem is in BackupAssist becasue all it does is write a script then call WSB to execute it, and the script doesn't vary.
    Help??

    Hi,
    There are several reasons which may cause the backup to be full instead of incremental, such as source volume snapshot is deleted, from which the last backup was taken.
    For more detailed information, please refer to the thread below:
    control incremental vs full backup on W2k8 R2
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/7820edc7-18ef-4f6e-bb50-f87f4a728597/control-incremental-vs-full-backup-on-w2k8-r2?forum=windowsbackup
    There is a similar thread, please go through it to help troubleshoot this issue:
    Understanding Windows Small Business Server 2008 Backup - Full and Incremental with 2 Backup Destinations
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/bdb3c5ae-81dc-4f54-a39e-4b888ee52476/understanding-windows-small-business-server-2008-backup-full-and-incremental-with-2-backup
    Regards,
    We
    are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
    interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
    Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

  • I am new to mac.  I have a Mac Book Air with an external CD drive.  How do you safely disconnect the external drive when done without having to power off the laptop?

    I know there is a way to safely "disconnect" the USB, I just can't remember what it is.  Thanks

    Hi kbstuckr,
    Go to your Finder. You will see the drive listed with a little arrow with a bar below it next to the drive. Click on that to "eject" it.
    Cheers,
    GB

  • I want to search an external hard drive but when I click on it and do a command F the darn highlight jumps right back to 'home computer'.  How can I search the actual external drive?

    This is extremely irritating and frustrating.  I think someone said to click on the external drive's name and do a command F but that doesn't work.
    I also need to know why Apple Mail rules aren't working.  I have them set to 'any' the email of the spammer, and 'move to junk on my mac'.  It will work on that specific email, but not on others from the same email address as they come in.
    But mostly I need to find something in one of two external drives and I need it yesterday.
    Thanks.

    YAY!  That did it.
    Thank you so much.
    And a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year to you!
    bonnie

  • Daisy chain two external drives via Firewire, then connect one via USB to the TC?

    Hi,
    I have two external drives that have both Firewire and USB ports. My 1st generation 500 gb Time Capsule (maybe all of them?) only has USB ports so up til now, I have connected one or the other drive via USB. (I've tried to connect both to a powered USB hub but one drive has problems showing up. At this point I only use the one drive that shows up and connect it directly with no hub to the Time Capsue.)
    My question is: Can I daisy chain the two drives via Firewire and then connect one of them (probably the one that has no problems connecting with USB) to the Time Capsule via USB?
    Second, somewhat-related problem...
    I don't know why one drive isn't connecting very well when directly connected to the Time Capsule. Both are Fantom drives. One is a 1TB, the one that has prblems connecting is a 250GB. I've tried connecting directly or through a powered hub. The 1B has no problems, the 250 gb won't show up most of the time and disconnects itself fairly quickly if it does connect. I've switched cables; that hasn't helped. The 1TB stays connected most of the time but sometimes it disconnects too. I suspect the Time Capsule just isn't able to deal with external drives so I don't puch it. It would be nice to be able to have both drives accessable through the TC though.
    Thanks for any help.
    Cheers,
    John

    Doing some experimentation, connecting the drives directly to the MBP:
    - Neither of the two drives Firewire daisy-chained and going through the powered USB hub connected to the MBP mount. I was using old aliases on desktop.*They don't show up on network otherwise. (Each drive self-mounts with both Firewire and USB direct connections.)
    *Even after making new aliases, neither drive will mount using their new aliases when directly connected (not through hub) with USB or Firewire (and Thunderbolt adapter.) That's weird.
    - Both the 240 gb and the 1TB drives going through powered hub connected to MBP mount by themselves.
    - Two drives daisy-chained via Firewire and one drive connected to the MBP via Firewire (and Thunderbolt adapter) self-mount. No surprise there but that doesn't help me as I want to have the drives further away from the MBP and connected to the Time Capsule, which doesn't have a Firewire port anyway...
    - All of the USB and the Firewire cables work as does the Thunderbolt adapter. I tested them.
    I wonder.... I have a Firewire to what appears to be an Ethernet connector. I wonder if that would be any good. I'm afraid to try it though...

  • One person, one iPhone, one laptop. Two homes in two states, two external drives, two identical copies of my music library.  Many headaches.

    I feel like this question is asked endlessly on these boards, but somehow I still can't find a relevant answer... So, apologies for rehashing a variant of the same question!
    I have one (ancient) MacBook Pro, and one (ancient) iPhone.  I carry both back and forth between two states: the state where I work and the state where I live the rest of the time.  My ancient MBP and my ancient iPhone are too small to carry my whole music collection (which is quite large—larger than a new phone or laptop would reasonably support, anyway).   My mobile apps and my podcasts live on my laptop, but my music library lives on an external drive.  I have two external drives now, one in each state where I live/work.  I also have a copy of everything on my desktop machine at work, but I've given up long ago trying to sync to multiple computers.  I'll settle for now for syncing to one computer (my MBP), which sometimes is connected to one copy of my library, and sometimes is connected to another copy of my library. 
    I know that I can make multiple iTunes libraries, with duplicate copies of my podcast subscriptions, my apps, and my playlists and music, and keep switching which one my phone is set to sync to (wiping it each time, and possibly losing some settings in the process?)   But that's a pain in the neck.  Plus, it's hard to keep my podcasts active in both libraries, because iTunes podcast subscriptions are like frail little tamagotchi critters that need constant love, nurturing, and encouragement, or else they wither and die. 
    Is there any way to have a single library, with my apps and podcasts on the laptop, which just happens to make use of the "local" copies of my music on whichever external drive happens to be attached?
    Or do I need the google cloud + android if I want to unify my listening and syncing life?
    Thanks!

    Hi,
    There are several reasons which may cause the backup to be full instead of incremental, such as source volume snapshot is deleted, from which the last backup was taken.
    For more detailed information, please refer to the thread below:
    control incremental vs full backup on W2k8 R2
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/7820edc7-18ef-4f6e-bb50-f87f4a728597/control-incremental-vs-full-backup-on-w2k8-r2?forum=windowsbackup
    There is a similar thread, please go through it to help troubleshoot this issue:
    Understanding Windows Small Business Server 2008 Backup - Full and Incremental with 2 Backup Destinations
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/bdb3c5ae-81dc-4f54-a39e-4b888ee52476/understanding-windows-small-business-server-2008-backup-full-and-incremental-with-2-backup
    Regards,
    We
    are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
    interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
    Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

  • Using smart previews on iMac to control two sets of identical original files on two external drives --- render previews setting when using smart previews

    I’m just getting started with Lightroom and if someone can help me I’ll be very appreciative.
    I’m using an iMac with a 1TB drive and two external 2.5 TB drives for backup.  My active files are on all three drives and I’m running out of room on the iMac drive.
    With the smart previews capability of Lightroom 5, I’m hoping to remove all the active files from the iMac drive.  I hope to import existing images into the LR catalog from two identical drives with identical folders and have both sets of images reflect the changes I make using smart previews on my iMac.
    I just created two identical test folders of junk images on the external drives and was following a beginners tutorial on importing. However, I see nothing about using smart previews on my iMac that, when connected, will update more than one external drive at the same time.
    I’m also wondering if, when using smart previews, it matters how I set the render previews during the import process.
    Many thanks for any help,
    Karl Hentz

    I don't see any way to use smart previews to update both external drives at the same time. The smart previews are linked to a specific set of images. But it seems to me that if both drives are in fact identical, once the catalog is updated when one of those drives is connected those changes should also apply to the files on the other drive. It's actually the catalog that gets updated, not the images.  Smart previews and regular import previews are completely unrelated. How you have your import previews configured will have no effect on your smart previews.
    Incidentally, in order for my suggestion to work it would be necessary to only have one of those external drives connected. And when the other EHD is connected it would have to have the same drive letter or name. In other words it would have to appear to the iMac that it is precisely the same drive.

  • How do I correctly share an external drive under Lion?

    Hello,
    I've bought myself a new Mac Mini running Mac OS X Lion and i'm having difficulties with sharing files from an external USB hard drive with Windows users.
    To cut to the chase, I can correctly share anything from the local hard drive inside the mac without any issues.  I've got an external drive enclosure with two drives installed which are picked up correctly by Lion without any issues.  The only problem occurs when I try to share them.
    Windows users can see the machine on the network and can see the file shares underneath.  However they receive an error stating they can't access the share, with a message at the bottom stating that "The parameter is incorrect".  Now im not having any issues sharing the local Mac drive which is working perfectly.  I'm running an AirVideo server which is correctly serving content from the external drive, and TwonkyServer which is also serving content from this external drive over UpNP without issues.
    All the Windows clients are Windows Vista or newer, so Apples changes to SMB file sharing in Lion should not be an issue here.
    I say i'm having problems with sharing to Windows users.  However, I have only one Mac and no other Mac's to share with.
    A couple of things for your consideration as well.  The external USB drives are formatted to NTFS and i'm using Paragon NTFS for read/write access to the drives.  I also have Sophos Antivirus installed on the Mac.
    Cheers.

    Well, what do you know.  I plugged in another external drive and formatted it to HFS+ and it shared fine.
    Barring some issue with Paragon NTFS interferring, it looks like Max OS X Lion can not share externally attached drives that are formatted in NTFS.
    Any clever cookie have a workaround?

  • Is it possible to set up a backup between two external drives

    Is it possible to set up a backup between two external drives?
    i use time machine to back up my imac onto an external 2T.
    i also have two external 3T drives.  i am looking for redundancy of data, tried software RAID and it failed.  i also see some limitations with RAID that a backup would avoid.
    thanks for sharing your expertise.
    be well,
    tony

    so thanks to all of you, particularly rkaufmann87 i have decided to stop the plan of setting up a software RAID set.  instead i have downloaded ccc and am in the process of setting up the secone 3t external drive as a clone.  i will use time machine to back up the internal hard drive only and if possible see if i can clone that as well onto one of the 3t's.
    this gives me the peace of mind i sounght and avoids the problem of total corruption that exists with the raid solution i was exploring.
    thank you all for making this an enjoyable and informative experience.  what a powerful community.
    be well
    tony

  • I am moving from PC to Mac.  My PC has two internal drives and I have a 3Tb external.  What is best way to move the data from the internal drives to Mac and the best way to make the external drive read write without losing data

    I am moving from PC to Mac.  My PC has two internal drives and I have a 3Tb external.  What is best way to move the data from the internal drives to Mac and the best way to make the external drive read write without losing data

    Paragon even has non-destriuctive conversion utility if you do want to change drive.
    Hard to imagine using 3TB that isn't NTFS. Mac uses GPT for default partition type as well as HFS+
    www.paragon-software.com
    Some general Apple Help www.apple.com/support/
    Also,
    Mac OS X Help
    http://www.apple.com/support/macbasics/
    Isolating Issues in Mac OS
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1388
    https://www.apple.com/support/osx/
    https://www.apple.com/support/quickassist/
    http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/help/
    http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/tour/
    Get Help with your Product
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304725
    Apple Mac App Store
    https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_app_store/using_mac_apple_store
    How to Buy Mac OS X Mountain Lion/Lion
    http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/
    TimeMachine 101
    https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
    http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine
    Mac OS X Community
    https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os

  • Instructions: How To Install Logic Studio on External Drive

    Sorry for starting another thread, but this will turn up in a search engine inquiry better than the other thread, so please delete the other one instead. I believe the subject heading wording will be more search engine friendly
    Okay after much digging , I have found out what parts of Logic Studio 9 can & cannot be installed on an external Drive and here's how I did it:
    http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/4177710/img/Anonymous/Picture-1.png
    http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/4177713/img/Anonymous/Picture-2.png
    Then after everything is installed:
    Library>Application Support>Logic>EXS Factory Samples
    Dragged to the Ext. HD got 3 gigs out of it
    Then Library>Application Support>GarageBand>Instrument Library>Sampler>Sampler Files (NOT SAMPLER INSTRUMENTS !)
    That scored me another 12GB
    Installing that way allows approx 38GB of Logic on an Ext. HD
    Message was edited by: Geoff J

    If you want, you can install your OS on the external drive and boot up from that by setting the external drive as startup in the system preferences. Then you can install ALL of logic on it instead of using the internal at all. I've been set up this way for years.

  • Mounting a windows formated external drive

    I'm running Lion on a Macbook Pro.  It doesn't recognize one of my external drives that was used on my windows based laptop when connected via the USB cable.  Is there a way to mount this external drive on a mac?
    Thanks,
    ssc

    @Shootist007, thanks for your reply, yes, it's a USB dirve (seagate) and I do have it connected to the wall outlet via AC adapter.  It was originally formated to work with my windows machine but I thought the Mac could read windows formatted drives....?
    fotoz

  • Backing up to two external drives at same time

    I have two external drives, one for Time Machine and one using SuperDuper, both using USB. Can both be running at the same time or should one be disconnected before running a backup on the other? Thanks

    Both can be used at the same time.
    If the backups run at the same time, both will be trying to use USB at the same time, so both will be slowed down.
    Unless TM is doing a large backup, though, the impact should not be great.
    And it's best to leave them connected at all times, rather than connect and disconnect (unless you're taking one off-site).

Maybe you are looking for

  • HELP!!! ***ghosty*** Network Problem

    Hi fellas, I work in a medium sized corporation and we use both IBMs and Macs. I recently formatted a Powermac G5 and installed Mac OS X.4 on it, the networking worked perfectly for that day but went dead the next day. Same happened for a powerbook G

  • Portal center: A lot of missing documents..

    Hello, As I was unable to find a contact/feedback form on portalcenter/portalstudio, I thought I'd just try here, and see what happens. I am trying to find documentation on how to develop plsql portlets, so I found the "Plsql Home" on portalcenter: h

  • XML file into String

    Hello,     I want to convert total xml file into string in UDF, i am getting an error. can anybody tell me the solution. what is the wrong in bellow code. String str =a+b; String strLine; StringBuffer sbr=new StringBuffer(); try{      FileInputStream

  • Charts x axis values really long

    I can't find a way to format these x values... they always change to this really long string of numbers

  • How to retrieve the username/password of logged user so to use web services

    Hi Experts, we are using web services from a web dynpro application, the web services we use are CAF web services; actually we are "hardcoding" username and password so to be able to execute these web services, using this code before calling the web