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!

Intel iMac 24" / MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.5), Where the h*** did all these external drives come from?

Posted on Jan 9, 2009 6:37 PM

17 replies

Jan 19, 2009 9:50 AM in response to Barry Levine

Is there a way to do this from single user mode?

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.

-Michael

Jan 19, 2009 11:03 AM in response to scruzphreak

started a new thread since this one was marked as "answered"

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