trentl4 wrote:
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.
it's quite strange that you can boot in single user mode but can not access this drive any other way. even if you can't repair the drive while booted from the install dvd or from another mac you should be able to access files on that drive and copy them to the external. have you tried that? anyway, to mount a USB drive in single user mode you need to know its device number.
run
ls /dev/disk*
in SUM. it will list all available devices. you are looking at something with the name like disk2s2 or similar. let's say it's disk2s2.
then create a mount point and mount the drive to it.
mkdir /volumes/mnt
mount_hfs /dev/disk2s2 /volumes/mnt
this assumes that the USB drive is formatted HFS+.
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?
you asked for it 🙂 getting or not getting Disk Warrior is up to you. it's a nice tool but you can live without it. however, what is not debatable and something you can not live without is a backup. it's pretty clear you don't have one. there is no excuse for not having a backup these days given prices of external drives. if you had a backup you would not be facing this situation at all.