Success Mounting Internal Drive Via Terminal, but...
 

I'm posting back on this thread because I was able to get my internal hard drive mounted on my desktop with several Terminal commands. My mounting problem seems to be mostly solved, but I could still use a bit of direction with Terminal to get a few remaining glitches worked out and to determine if I really do need a new internal drive in order to install Leopard.

Most recently, and up to this point, I tried every which way to erase my unmounted, internal drive in Disk Utility. I got every error message possible. Even trying to repartition and reformat wouldn't work. I couldn't use the Restore function because the unmounted, greyed out disk wouldn't move into the destination area. I did call around and check online about getting a new internal drive, but the one I found is on backorder for 21 days. I do have my Leopard startup disks now, but have no way to install the system on an internal drive. Just a side note on internal ATA-100 drives for PowerBooks...suffice it to say availability and cost are an issue. The only thing a local computer store had in stock for a PB was a 40GB internal drive for $70 (I'm guessing that's not going to be flying off the store shelf any time soon).

For some odd reason (and realizing I was, again, pretty much stuck in limbo for several weeks without a replacement internal drive), I decided to put some of my Terminal and Disk Utility error messages into Google. One of the things I found was an Apple Support Document which offered several Terminal commands to mount a disk as read only. Here's the document http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23941 and here's what I tried that worked:

mkdir /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5a
sudo mount -t hfs -o rdonly /dev/disk2s3 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5a
disktool -r

After I typed in "disktool -r", the Terminal screen said "Refreshing Disk Arbitration ..." and then BOOM----my internal drive suddenly appeared on my desktop with the appropriate hd icon and all of the contents intact. Incidentally, I temporarily renamed my internal drive "Mac HD 10.5a" to be able to differentiate it from the DiskWarrior preview disk (named Mac HD 10.5) which is also on my desktop and in my /Volumes folder.

So, here's where I'm at now:
1. When I restarted my PowerBook after the successful mount, the mounted internal drive disappeared from the desktop and was not in the /Volumes folder, but I was able to mount it again with the Terminal commands above. I also ran DiskWarrior again and it quickly rebuilt a Preview Disk with everything in the right place.
2.While the disk is mounted and showing up correctly on my desktop and in my finder windows, it is not showing up at all in Disk Utility. DU is still showing the internal volume as "disk2s3" which is unmounted and is greyed out with the generic disk icon. Actually, after the last restart, the internal disk showed up as "disk0s3" and "disk2s3" got assigned to my WD My Passport external backup drive.
3. Since the mounted, internal drive is not showing up in DU, of course, I can't erase or reformat it to install Leopard or use Restore with the DW preview disk.
4. In addition, the internal drive is not showing up as an option in Carbon Copy Cloner, so I can't move things over from my Passport external drive. I can't manually move things over either because the internal drive is now read only. The "Get Info" box shows the permissions option greyed out and there is a little crossed-out pencil in the lower left hand corner of the finder window when I open the internal drive.

I have to believe (hope) there is a way to 1) mount the internal drive as read/write and also keep the internal drive mounted after a reboot and 2) get the mounted, internal drive to show up properly in Disk Utility and CCC. I've found several Terminal possibilities to try, but thought it would be best to first try to get some input from the smart folks here. If it helps at all, I ran " ls -alo /Volumes" in Terminal and got the results below. For clarification, my internal drive is now "Mac HD 10.5a" and the DiskWarrior Preview Disk is "Mac HD 10.5". If a comparison is needed from when my internal drive was not mounted at all, that Terminal data is shown in Post #1 of my first thread (http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=168624). Here's what I got this morning:

Last login: Mon Mar 11 06:20:56 on ttyp2
Welcome to Darwin!
c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ ls -alo /Volumes
total 32
drwxrwxrwt 9 root admin - 306 Mar 11 06:34 .
drwxrwxr-t 43 root admin - 1564 Mar 11 01:50 ..
-rw-rw-rw- 1 Janessdb admin - 6148 Mar 11 06:13 .DS_Store
-rwxrwxrwx 1 Janessdb Janessdb - 82 Dec 27 2005 ._ANDY SASAS'
drwxrwxr-t 46 root admin - 1598 Jan 20 02:36 Mac HD 10.5
drwxrwxr-t 45 root admin - 1564 Jan 20 02:36 Mac HD 10.5a
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin - 1 Mar 11 01:50 Macintosh HD -> /
drwxrwxr-t 41 root admin - 1496 Mar 10 13:25 My Passport Studio
drwxr-xr-x 2 Janessdb admin - 68 Mar 11 06:03 disk0s3
c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ id
uid=501(Janessdba) gid=501(Janessdba) groups=501(Janessdba), 81(appserveradm), 79(appserverusr), 80(admin)
c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ echo "done"

So, any help at all in terms of interpreting the results above and trying something in Terminal to change the internal drive to read/write would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and, hopefully, the information here will perhaps help some other folks if they ever have trouble with a disk that won't mount.

Some compatible drives available online today: (By the way, you don't specifically need ATA-100, you can use ATA-133 as well, for example.)

Samsung 160 GB ATA-100 2.5"
Seagate 100 GB PATA 2.5"
Seagate 120 GB ATA-100 2.5"
Western Digital 80 GB PATA
Mercury Legacy Pro 2.5" ATA SSDs (Solid State Drives)

Trevor

You're running Leopard, OS X 10.5.x, right? For Leopard and later versions of OS X, we need to see

ls -alOe

The version you saw on an old forum post, ls -alo is for Tiger and previous. Beginning with Leopard, the O must be uppercase and we should see -e as well, in order to see if any ACL (access control list) is causing problems.

Trevor

Hi Trevor,

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly and also for providing the HD info.

1. Regarding a new internal drive (if I do actually need one), I had sort of settled on a WD 160 GB (WD1600BEVE). I found that drive for between $90-$129, but both places were backordered. My current internal drive is 120 GB, so I don't want to go smaller than that. I have seen a few things about issues/problems people have had with WD internal drives, but I don't know how much merit there is to those drives being more problematic than other brands. I'll look further into the helpful links you provided.

2. As for my OS situation...
My current bootable drive is my external drive (Macintosh HD) which is running Tiger 10.4.8. So, I think the " ls -alo /Volumes" command was the right one to run. When I bought this used PowerBook, I paid extra for Leopard and the store loaded 10.5.8 from its server onto the internal drive named Mac HD 10.5 (and currently renamed Mac HD 10.5a for the reasons I explained above). The system disks I have from Apple contain 10.5.6, but I can't install that system on the current internal drive because it became unmounted after a computer freeze and, now that it is mounted, the internal drive is read-only. So, no, I'm not currently running Leopard which is what I am trying to accomplish after I solve the problems I've described.

Given this information, do you still want me to run "ls -alOe" or is there something else that will give you the ACL info or anything else you might need or find useful to know? Also, would the Tiger version of Disk Utility that I've been using to try to work on the internal drive with Leopard 10.5.8 be causing or not solving any of the problems? I think I remember reading something where you can't repair OS-related problems with DU that runs on an earlier OS than the OS on the drive you're trying to repair.

System disk(s)?. For 10.5? The installer is a DVD, and AFAIK, is a single DVD, unless you purchased more than one copy?

Installing 10.5 means that you would be booting to that installer DVD, and any "mount" action would be reset, because your Mac would restart. OS X 10.5.6 is the latest (and last) version of the full install for Leopard. You would run Software Update on the installed 10.5.6 to get that version up to 10.5.8

So, the question NOW is:
What is the result when you boot to that Leopard installer? Does it allow you to select your internal drive? If it does, try the install using the Option to Archive & Install first. If that doesn't work, or reports an error - what is the error?
You can also try the Option to Erase & Install (probably your best choice to get the hard drive back in working order)

In my opinion, Western Digital is a good and mostly inexpensive brand of hard drive. I would personally trust a WD drive today just as much as any of the drive brands I linked to above. A Seagate drive might be a bit faster, but it also might run a bit hotter. YMMV.

Ah, I had forgotten exactly which OS version you were using, and I noted the name of your drive seemed to indicate Leopard. Since you're on Tiger, then ls -alo /Volumes is absolutely the correct command.

Trevor

Hi DeltaMac,

<<System disk(s)?. For 10.5? The installer is a DVD, and AFAIK, is a single DVD, unless you purchased more than one copy?>>

I did receive 2 disks...one installer DVD that includes the "Install Mac OS X" app, a package that says "DVD or CD Sharing Setup" (and I have no clue what that is), a folder with Optional Installs that includes an "Optional Installs" package and a folder with Xcode Tools (again, no clue), and a folder with Instructions. The second disk is some kind of Apple promo thing (garbage) about iPads, iPhones, iTunes Store, etc. So, you're right...the Leopard system disk is one disk even though I referred to the plural. (I had to look up "AFAIK"...I thought it was some kind of DVD extra or technical tool...hahaha).

<<Installing 10.5 means that you would be booting to that installer DVD, and any "mount" action would be reset, because your Mac would restart. OS X 10.5.6 is the latest (and last) version of the full install for Leopard. You would run Software Update on the installed 10.5.6 to get that version up to 10.5.8>>

I get this, but the problem is that, when the PB restarts, the internal drive disappears so there is no internal drive for Leopard to install to. That's what I'm trying to fix. I need to figure out:

1. How to now change the mounted, internal drive from read-only to read/write to see if I can move the good contents from the external Passport or the DW preview disk. If I can do that, I don't even need to reinstall Leopard from the DVD immediately. Then, when I have a bit more time, I can go ahead and install Leopard from the DVD, even if I need to (or should) erase and reformat the internal drive first. Does that make sense or am I mistaken? Most important, I really need to find out if my current internal disk will work before I fork out $$$ for a new internal drive that I may not need.
2. How to do something via Terminal that will stop the internal drive from disappearing after I reboot.
3. How to get the internal drive to be recognized by Disk Utility.

<<So, the question NOW is:
What is the result when you boot to that Leopard installer? Does it allow you to select your internal drive?>>

Answered above, I think.

Hi trevor,

<<Since you're on Tiger, then ls -alo /Volumes is absolutely the correct command.>>

So, I'm not sure about what I can do next via Terminal to try to possibly get the internal drive to change from read-only to read/write and to behave properly related to reboot and Disk Utility. For what it's worth (or not), here's one of the Terminal commands I found that seemed to have something to do with trying to (re)mount a read-only drive as read/write;

sudo mount -o remount,rw /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5a

I can't find the link right now to the article I had read, but I think the command had something to do with trying to remount an external device. I stuck in my own drive information, but I haven't a clue what the command above would or wouldn't do in my particular situation. The command looks fairly straightforward, but I have no idea what the "-o" would relate to. Do you think the command above would work or is there something else to try? Is there anything else I can do in Terminal to produce some results that would provide more useful information for you?

Thanks again for the HD info...the WD external FW drive I've been using has been working flawlessly, so I don't know why the WD internals would behave any differently.

If it helps at all, here are 2 screen caps that show the difference between what I'm seeing in the Disk Utility finder window versus the drives that appear on my desktop.

And, of course, your Mac HD 10.5a does not appear anywhere.
The item "disk2s3" is that disk, I suppose.
And, showing only the hardware designation doesn't say much good about that hard drive.

What happens when you boot to your Leopard installer, then open Disk Utility, select that device (111.8 GB ST9120821A) Select that line, and not the "disk2s3" line. Click the Partition tab, choose anything under Volume Scheme dropdown, then click the Apply button. That will wipe everything off that drive (and you said you already have everything that you want backed up, so that's OK to do, right?). If successful, that should give you a good, mounted partition, and you can continue with an install of Leopard.
Or, it will fail the partition, with a nice error - and then you continue on with replacing the hard drive (it's no use beating a dead horse :D - or banging your head against the wall... ) You've tried virtually everything you could reasonably try. Time to move on.

Hi DeltaMac,

<<And, of course, your Mac HD 10.5a does not appear anywhere.>>

I'm assuming you mean that the Mac HD 10.5a internal drive doesn't show up in Disk Utility which is correct. The fourth drive (the blue one) named "Mac HD 10.5" in my desktop image above is the (now) mounted, problematic internal drive. The grey drive above that with the magnifying glass (also named "Mac HD 10.5") is the DiskWarrior preview (which, I'm sure, you already know). The folder in /Volumes corresponding to the internal drive was named "Mac HD 10.5a" to differentiate it from the DW mount point folder in /Volumes which shows up in the /Volumes folder as "Mac HD 10.5". Also in the /Volumes folder is an empty folder for "disk0s3" (screen cap provided). The point (and potential problem) is that the mounted internal drive does not show up in Disk Utility which may or may not be a hardware issue, as much as that might be another problem potentially related to something that is not set right in permissions/path etc.

<<The item "disk2s3" is that disk, I suppose.>>

Yes, "disk2s3" in the screen cap corresponds to the internal Mac HD 10.5. The similar disk/volume below that one belongs to DiskWarrior. For what it's worth, after I rebooted the PB, that "disk2s3" disk changed to "disk0s3" and "disk2s3" got reassigned to the Passport drive.

<<What happens when you boot to your Leopard installer, then open Disk Utility, select that device (111.8 GB ST9120821A) Select that line, and not the "disk2s3" line. Click the Partition tab, choose anything under Volume Scheme dropdown, then click the Apply button. That will wipe everything off that drive (and you said you already have everything that you want backed up, so that's OK to do, right?). If successful, that should give you a good, mounted partition, and you can continue with an install of Leopard. >>

I tried to do all of the above many times over this past weekend before I was finally able to get the drive mounted and I kept getting a variety of error messages. I copied a bunch of those errors (including errors in the log from DU) and would be happy to post those errors over on my thread related to Leopard installation if you're interested. I would imagine I'd get the same results now even though the internal drive is mounted. The grey, generic disk (111.8 GB ST9120821A) has just not been receptive to being erased, repartioned, or reformatted. It behaves as if it's locked.

<<(it's no use beating a dead horse - or banging your head against the wall... ) You've tried virtually everything you could reasonably try.>>

I realize there's no use in beating a dead horse (or a dead drive) and that's really not what I'm trying to do here. I had the opportunity to review the details of my drive problem with several Mac-savvy people when I was phoning around to inquire about purchasing a new internal drive. Each person said the same thing...that it sounded like I had some kind of weird permissions/ACL/root/path problem that might be easily corrected through Terminal before I invested in a new internal drive.

The internal drive is making no unusual noise at all, all my data is still on the drive, and all hardware tests have indicated that the drive does not have a problem. That's not to say that a new internal drive wouldn't immediately solve the problem, but it certainly makes sense to try some Terminal commands to try to set the internal drive correctly. The collective recommendation was to find a knowledgeable Terminal resource for some possible restorative commands....and that's why I came back here and why I'm not sure that I have tried everything yet. There are clearly some really, really smart and talented Terminal people here and I'm obviously not one of them. In other words, if one or more Terminal commands could help me to make my internal disk read/wirite so I could do the things you've suggested, I would not have to purchase a new internal drive right now. I'm just not yet convinced that my internal drive is toast since it's now mounted with all of its contents and, at least, readable.

In addition to trying some Terminal options, several of those Mac tech people also mentioned trying something with TestDisk or TechTool Pro to get further info/fix something, but I'm not sure what to do about that. I do have a TechTool Pro disk somewhere, but I know nothing about TestDisk.

If there are truly no Terminal options to try, then I will certainly move on to a new internal drive (which, unfortunately, would involve the cost of the new drive plus $100-$125 quoted to install). Clearly, if there's a Terminal fix, that would obviously be preferable.

I do understand and appreciate what you're saying and thanks again for all of the helpful advice and input you've provided to me.

I was finally able to get my internal hard drive, not only mounted, but now properly showing up as a mounted and accessible volume in Disk Utility (lots of Terminal trial and error along the way). As previously mentioned, the internal drive mounted on the desktop as read-only using the commands I specified in Post #41 above. If I can get the internal drive to mount as read-write, I will finally be able to either transfer data via DiskWarrior/Carbon Copy Cloner and/or do a Leopard reinstall (including the ability now to be able to erase/repartition/restore that internal volume in Disk Utility, if needed). The drive seems fine now, but I can only read it.

Here's the disk info as it looks now (including the fact that the "Owners Enabled" parameter is now changed back to "Yes"). Even though the description indicates the volume is writable, the disk was definitely set to read-only from the commands I used to get the drive mounted. Maybe that just means that the drive is writable if permissions are set to read-write.

Disk Identifier : disk0s3
Mount Point : /Volumes/Mac HD 10.5
File System : Mac OS Extended
Connection Bus : ATA
Partition Type : Apple_HFS
Device Tree : pci2/ata-6@D/@0:3
Writable : Yes
Capacity : 111.7 GB (119,899,865,088 Bytes)
Free Space : 26.9 GB (28,865,929,216 Bytes)
Used : 84.8 GB (91,033,935,872 Bytes)
Number of Files : 615,081
Number of Folders : 165,194
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : No
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 3


The Terminal command I used to successfully mount the internal drive was this:
sudo mount -t hfs -o rdonly /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5


Logic would tell me that this command would mount the drive as read-write:
sudo mount -t hfs -o rdwr /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5

So, here are a couple of questions....

1. Would changing the "rdonly" to "rdwr" in the command above be the correct thing to try and would there be any harm in trying to reset the permissions for the entire volume by doing this?
2. If that command change is not correct, would there be another suggestion?

Any input about this would be greatly appreciated...thanks.

Only two questions:
Does Disk Utility/Repair Disk complete successfully now?
Does Disk Warrior complete without reporting a hardware malfunction?

Either question should help you understand if the hard drive is good, or not good.

Hi DeltaMac,

I ran Disk Utility and it still reported an invalid node structure which make sense because the same directory damage remains on the disk. However, DU looked like it was going through the repair process, but I didn't want to take a chance, so I stopped it. DU was able to run repair permissions. Disk Warrior did not report disk damage like it did before, but I didn't go further because the internal drive is locked now as read-only. I want to make the drive read-write so I can then do a transfer from the rebuilt directory from DW or do other things from within DU. I tried some other obscure Terminal command to change the drive to read-write, but Terminal began to change permissions on over 600K individual files and it looked like that process was going to take about a week. Hence, my question on the possible command above which seems like it would be a more direct method. So, I hope someone will get back to me about that question. In the meantime, I've left a few questions about the Leopard reinstall and backup options on the specific Leopard thread (http://hintsforums.macworld.com/newr...reply&t=168784), so maybe you could take a look at that?

I think I'm really close to figuring out a solution, so thanks for your help. Certainly, if I hit a glitch with these last few steps, I'll get a new drive. However, it would seem silly to invest in a new internal drive if I really don't need that.

I desperately need to try to remount my internal hard drive as read-write (currently read-only with a crossed-out pencil icon in the finder folder). I could really, really use some input and advice from the Terminal command gurus here. Over the past few days, I've searched high and low about how to change a volume from read-only to read-write and have found many different variations of suggested Terminal command lines (mostly through Apple support docs and Unix textbooks). Although I have become more familiar with what command lines mean and what they can do, I really do not understand what to try and what to stay away from.

Below are 10 examples of command lines that fall into the areas of 1) mounting a volume as read-write after the status had been read-only or 2) remounting an already mounted read-only hard drive to become read-write. If anyone here can help, would it be possible to get an idea from the list below which command lines I might safely try and in what order and which command lines to stay away from because they are not applicable or might damage the data on my internal drive? I've entered in my particular disk and hard drive information in the commands below. I would sincerely appreciate any advice, so thank you...


1. sudo mount -t hfs -o_rdwr /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
2. sudo mount -t hfs -o rdwr /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
3. sudo mount -o remount,rw /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
4. sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/disk0s03 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
5. sudo mount –t hfs /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
6. sudo mount /dev/disk0s03 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
7. sudo mount -uw /dev/disk0s03 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
8. sudo mount -u -w /dev/disk /disk0s03 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
9. sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw /dev/disk0s03 /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5
10. sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 10.5

Additionally, if it helps further, below is recent volume information which shows privileges. The WD Passport external is read-write, while the Mac HD 10.5 is read-only, yet both drives show the same privileges. I don't understand that, but for what it's worth:

Last login: Wed Mar 20 09:07:16 on ttyp3
Welcome to Darwin!
c-xx-xxx-x-xxx:~ Janessdba$ ls -al /Volumes/
total 32
drwxrwxrwt 8 root admin 272 Mar 17 21:47 .
drwxrwxr-t 43 root admin 1564 Mar 16 18:54 ..
-rw-rw-rw- 1 Janessdb admin 6148 Mar 16 17:07 .DS_Store
-rwxrwxrwx 1 Janessdb Janessdb 82 Dec 27 2005 ._ANDY SASAS'
drwxrwxr-t 45 root admin 1564 Jan 20 02:36 Mac HD 10.5
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Mar 16 18:54 Macintosh HD -> /
drwxrwxr-t 41 root admin 1496 Mar 10 13:25 My Passport Studio