Single User Mode - mount external drive and make it r/w

How can I access a USB disk and make it read/write?
I can't +mount -uw /Volumes/"Time Machine Backups"+ because it says that the disk is a special type.
Can I just use chmod because the disk is automounted?
When I attempt to chmod my USB disk, I get this message:
chmod: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups: Read-only file system
chmod: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.autodiskmounted: Read-only file system
I know that I can cp from the internal disk, since I can cat the pictures to the terminal. But I can't make the external hard disk writeable.
I need to do this from single user mode, because the machine won't boot from the DVD.
-Michael

Just got back from the apple store. The genius found these things:
* My DVD is fine. It loaded in another computer
* My computer is mostly fine, except for the hard disk. It was able to boot off of an external Firewire disk.
* The DVD drive is fine. When the computer was booted off the external disk, it was able to mount my DVD.
* The internal HD is definitely bad. Drag/drop copy to an external HD was going to take 3 hours for about 30 files. Disk Utility shows it in red.
* He suspects that the failing HD prevented the machine from being able to load a DVD. (?)
His advice:
1 Buy a new 2.5" SATA disk at Frys.
2 Buy a USB sled for the old disk
3 Replace the failing HD in the laptop with the new, unformatted disk
4 Boot from the OS X DVD
5 Install the OS from the DVD
6 Reboot from the internal HD
7 Insert the failing HD in the sled, and connect it to the computer once it's booted off the new HD. Copy everything from the /users directory
8 But a new HD for the sled and use it for Time Machine backups
9 Teach the daughter the importance of regular backups
Let's hope this works.

Similar Messages

Single User Mode - mount external drive and copy user files to there

I have an iBook G4 running (I think) Tiger (although it may be Panther). AHT reports a bad HD and it will not boot from that drive. Mounting it via Target Disk to another Mac won't permit me to even see beyond the root directory; just a spinning sunburst at the bottom of the Finder window.
If I boot into single-user mode, I can "ls" and "cd" to see the files and folders in the home folder. Assuming the HD is named "Macintosh HD" and I have a USB-connected hard drive named "Backup", what are the commands I need to use in single-user mode in order to mount "Backup" and copy the user's home folder (there's only one on this drive) over to "Backup"?
As I indicated above, I'm not absolutely sure whether this iBook is running Panther or Tiger.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!

I'm in the middle of copying things.
I did a chmod -R ug+w (IIRC) to the 300GB volume and this made it writable.
I then CD'd to the Pictures folder on the Macintosh HD.
I then did a cp *.jpg /Volumes/300GB/ and found that it managed to copy all of the jpegs that were sitting loose in the Pictures folder. Some of the photos were corrupted but I expected this as the drive is reported to have a hardware issue by AHT.
I'm now in the process of copying the iPhoto Library using the cp -r command. Some files are being reported as bad and can't be copied but, again, I'm expecting this.
Whatever I can get from this drive will be a bonus. I'll mention that I used Drive Genius to duplicate the HD to a disk image and, while this was done successfully, it resulted in a "no filesystem" error when I attempted to mount it. However, I -did- ask for it to be mounted anyway and then used DiskWarrior on it (even though it didn't appear in the Finder). It took a few hours for DiskWarrior to come up with a "preview" of the disk (as the filesystem was thoroughly hosed). The User folder was nowhere to be found and every file that was displayed was corrupt. That's why I'm trying this "out of the GUI" process.
I'll thank everyone who made suggestions; they all pointed me in the proper direction.

What's "...start in Single User mode"? HOW? and WHY?

A silly question...
What's "...start in Single User mode"? HOW? and WHY?
Can anyone, please explain that to me?
Cheers!

Hello Nando,
The only silly questions are the ones that never get asked
Have a look in here...
Single User Mode
Hope that helps
Regards
Ian

Single user mode, Lost Admin Account, and Disk Permissions

Okay, so I have quite a few issues here. I will start from the beginning.
About a week ago, I tried to install some updates and I could not get the Admin account to work. I went to the users profile and noticed my Admin account was not there. Did a quick search and found Apple's outline of how to fix this via the Operational DVD and the root user. Tried this and it would never work, because as soon as I restarted the computer or changed screens it switched back to a standard account.
Next up, I went into the terminal to check the Admin User group. As it turns out it is not there. So I find a discussion on there that outlines how to rebuild this in single user mode and the Unix prompt. So, I print it off and try to restart in single user mode. After trying two different keyboards and a sum total of 8 to 10 times, I can't restart in single user mode to get to the Unix prompt.
One last thing, last night I went into the Disk Utility on the start-up DVD. I wanted to check the Repair Permission log and I got the following:
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root/Library/Preferences"
ACL found but not expected on "private/var/root/Library/"
ACL found but not expected on "Network"
Thoughts?
Thanks for your help!
tpp

first, the ACL messages can be ignored. if you can't get to single user mode you can't fix your admin group. the only reasons that I know why you wouldn't be able to do that is
1. a defective keyboard
2. you have a firmware password set. have you? you'd have to turn it off before you can get to single user mode.
lastly when you restart in single user mode make sure you press command+s right after you hear the chime. do not press it too early or too late. lastly, I'm not sure which instructions you've found to fix the admin group but I have them in this thread
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8011324

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!).

Mounting external drive while in Single-User mode

Last night, a friend of mine's hard drive was failing in his Macbook (in San Diego, I'm in Colorado). Booting into normal mode would cause a lot of errors. He booted into single-user mode and could not figure out how to mount his firewire drive. I booted into single-user mode on my Macbook and hooked up my USB drive and did an 'ls -ltr /dev' to see if the device showed up. Since it did not show up on the listing of /dev, there's no obvious way to mount it. I can't seem to find any legitimate posting out there nor here. Is there an answer to this problem?
Thanks,
Dave

Perform the mount command listed here, using a different mount tool if it's not a Mac formatted drive.
(36291)

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 ).

To mount a CD-ROM in Single User Mode. How?

Thank you for reading my question.
I need to run single user mode on my iMac because of a disk problem. I would like to be able to mount the cd drive while I am in single user mode. I would also like to be able to mount usb hard drives with confidence, so that I can copy off files from the internal hard drive.
I am in single user mode, which I get to by holding down Command-S on startup. I can look at the disks that are attached to my computer by executing
ls -l /dev/disk*
However this appears to be adding disks. I started with /dev/disk2 and /dev/disk2s1 etc which I understand are partitions on that external drive. Now when I list /dev/disk* I have /dev/disk3 and a couple of partitions on those devs. Is that normal? Have I not unmounted disks properly?
I have been using a directory that already exists as the mount point for my usb drives using
mount -t hfs /dev/disk1 /cores
which worked fine. Alas the disk I mounted on that directory was too small. Now I can't mount a disk on there. Do I need to unmount or fix up that assignment?
If I were to create a directory in /Volumes is that advisable? How do I make the root directory readable is that by using 'mount -uw'?
Thank you. Please if you answer my question, try to be clear on what commands to use and why. Bear in mind that other people will read this, and no one on the web seems able to write suggestions very clearly. Maybe we can be the first! If I have not been clear, please feel free to ask for clarification. i am not a total unix newbie. Rather in the 20 years since I was a sysadmin, my memory has faded.
Pete

I think you need to post this in a different forum. I think the Developer Forums would be the right choice.
In any event from the little Unix I know you can't mount a removable device until it's connected which means you need to put a CD/DVD into the optical drive. At that point if you enter 'df' you should see the device if it is mounted automatically (which I believe it does.)
In single-user mode the entire drive is readable and all files accessible. You are the 'root' user. In order to put the system into write mode you must enter 'mount -uw /'. Note the '/' at the end of the comnmand line. That makes the entire system writeable.
You do not need to create a directory in /Volumes. When the CD/DVD is recognized an entry in /Volumes will appear unless the disc is unformatted.
Now take some of the above with a grain of salt. I'm certainly no Unix expert.

Can I mount a firewire device in single user mode?

I've still got this idea I can rescue data from a hard drive that won't mount.
I put my external backup drive on another iMac to simulate what would happen. Briefly,
I plug in the drive, note the device name.
I reboot into single user mode.
The drive automatically powers off. Grrr.
I turn it back on again. It does not show up in /dev

How far did you go under "single user" mode? In "Tiger", running 'sh /etc/rc' (instructions to use this are included among the messages displayed starting up in single-user mode) starts up all sorts of things. Perhaps plugging in the drive after the script has run will have it show up in '/dev/' (I haven't tested this)...

Why won't single user mode recognize /sbin/mount command?

I need help from people who are knowledgable abou these Mac wonders of the world and single user mode.
I'm trying for the life of me to run "memtest" in single user mode and am finding it impossible.
After I boot into single user mode, I get a "Shell>" prompt.
I type in /sbin/fsck/ -y to do some check thing. I then type in /sbin/mount -uw /
Both times I get an error saying that "/sbin/yada yada yada is not recognized as an internal or external command, batch or whatever"
No command work at all. I have no clue what I'm doing and am using instructions from where I got the memtest app. Sure I could just run it from the Terminal but then you're not testing all of the RAM, only the available portion. There's a huge chunck that won't be tested as OSX is using it. I want to do this as I just upgraded RAM to 8G with Crucial and now my MBP is acting very slow and weird.
HELP???? Why does this have to be sooooo hard.

I found the solution to the problem. Somone on a different forum had the same issue at one time. The problem is my use of Refit. When you hold Command-S at start when using refit you go into a single user type mode inside the refit shell. So it is something different.
Instead I needed to let the Mac boot Refit like normal. With the Mac partition highlighted press "F2" and it will display boot options for the Mac partition. One of them is Mac OSX single user mode. Simply select and hit enter and then I enter the correct single user mode and I'm off.
Then everything works like it should. I was my own undoing with my use of Refit.

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

Single-user mode freeze

I am trying fsck a mac mini.
When I start up in single-user mode, the keyboard(Bluetooth and usb) do not work. I have to unplug the cpu.
Does this mean it's broke?

Leopard.

Unable to start in single-user mode - HD dead?

My MacBook Pro (Mac OS X) refused to start, it hung up on the loading screen where you see the apple and the spinning loading wheel. I found out how to fix this, I had to go into single-user mode and type "/sbin/fsck -fy" to repair/verify the disk (I was unable to do so from the Disk Utility via the Install Disc, the repair/verify buttons were just grayed out).
Anyways, doing this from the command line (single-user mode) fixed the problem and I could boot into Mac OS X (there were more issuses after this point which forced me to do an "Archive and Install").
^ that happened a week ago. And happened again yesterday, hung up on the exact same point. So I boot up my Mac into single-user mode, and type in "/sbin/fsck -fy" to start the process. Different from last time, I got a lot of text this time. It also kept going for a longer while. After about 10 minutes, there was a couple of minutes where nothing happened. So I typed "/sbin/fsck -fy" again (as I'm supposed to do so until it says "** The volume (nameofvolume) appears to be OK"), and I got some more text, then nothing happened for a while.
Inpatient as I am, I considered the process to be complete, and restarted my Mac by typing "exit".
I think I ****** up my Mac OS X partition at this point. Because when I try to start my Mac now, it automaticly boots into Windows XP (my other partition). Also I cannot enter single-user mode or Verbose mode, the Mac just ignores and goes right into Windows XP.
I've tried to boot from the Install Disc. When I run Disk Utility, the "HD"(name of Mac OS X partition) is grayed out. I can't do an Archive and Install because it cannot detect my main partition.
An interesting thing though: When I have the Install Disc inserted, I can enter single-user mode (by holding cmd+s at startup). However, when I type /sbin/fsck -fy, it starts verifying the Install Disc rather than the HD.
Also when I open My Computer in Windows XP, I can see the other partition (MacDrive). When I select it, I see:
Free Space: 219GB
Total Size: 168GB
This indicates that my HD is dead/erased, and that my last three months of work is gone. This just because I'm impatient, and didn't wait for the fsck process to complete.
What is the next step? How can I get into single-user mode so that I can verify/repair my disc?

On the point of contacting the folks at Alsoft, I have found that they seem to be unobtainable on www.alsoft.com at present.
I wanted to get in touch as I had a small problem with Diskwarrior on updating to 10.5.5 from 10.5.4 ,
Disk permissions ends with an error code.
I wonder if there were so many queries re this that they are unobtainable?
I run 3 machines from a wireless router, an iMac, an HP laptop with XP and a totally obsolete Dell into which i have squeezed W2000, with a resultant mix of browsers but no contact with the folks at Alsoft.
Am I in a minority of one here?

Server going to Single User mode

Hi guys,
I am having a database which we refresh every night with same back up where it is used for testing purposes. we will refresh the database thorough job. every time it refreshes it goes to single user mode, I should manually go and change the process using
following steps:
1) to execute sp_dboption
sp_dboption 'testdb01', 'single user', 'FALSE';
go
2) to retrieve client session per database
select d.name, d.dbid, spid, login_time, nt_domain, nt_username, loginame
from sysprocesses p inner join sysdatabases d on p.dbid = d.dbid
where d.name = 'testdb01'
go
3) kill the particular session
kill 51
go
4)Now I can ‘remove’ the database from Sinlge user mode.
exec sp_dboption 'testdb01', 'single user', 'FALSE'
go
Is there any way to write a query in which if the session goes to single user mode kill that session and start the restore process again? can you guys help in implementing that code.
thanks,
aravind.

i got one solution. I added the below script above the restore step process and in the restore store procedure i removed this statement "SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE".
Declare @name as varchar(15)
Declare @spid as varchar(4)
Declare sess_curs CURSOR
for select d.name, spid
from sysprocesses p inner join sysdatabases d on p.dbid = d.dbid
where d.name = 'Test_DB'
OPEN sess_curs
FETCH NEXT FROM sess_curs into @name,@spid
   While @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
       BEGIN
           EXEC('KILL '+ @spid)
           FETCH NEXT FROM sess_curs into @name,@spid
       END
   CLOSE sess_curs
   DEALLOCATE sess_curs
   Exec sp_dboption 'Test_DB', 'single user', 'FALSE'

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

Single User Mode - mount external drive and make it r/w

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for