[SOLVED] Copy files from a failed HD via external HD boot OR via terminal commands

[Mac-Michael]

Thanks a lot. Firstly, pls note that I'm accessing the terminal from osx installation disc boot. So if the target volume disk is "disk0s2" and my destination external HD is "disk2s1" (a 500 GB Western Digital USB portable external HD), is it correct to type the following commands?

cp -R [disk0s2] [disk2s1]/Users/[MyUserName/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music]/

And should I put the brackets exactly as above? Thanks in advance.

disk0s2 and disk2s1 are references to the devices, but to be able to read and write files they have to be mounted first. disk0s2 should already be mounted as / (forward slash). To mount the other one this would be the command

diskutil mount /dev/disk2s1

Now you should have two volumes listed in /Volumes . Type the following to make sure

ls -l /Volumes/

If you don't recognize the names or they don't make sense you can run this to see which is which.

mount | grep disk

That should give you an output like so

/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk2s1 on /Volumes/TheNameOfTheExternalHardDrive

Now you get to type

cp -R /Users/YourUserName/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music/ /Volumes/TheNameOfTheExternalHardDrive

Actually, I would make that 'cp -vR' like so

cp -vR /Users/YourUserName/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music/ /Volumes/TheNameOfTheExternalHardDrive

-v Causes cp to be verbose, showing files as they are copied. This would give you an idea if things are going well as it shows you which files are being copied.

 

[mufufu]

Solved.

Hello guys, sorry it took me awhile to report back. Thanks a lot for all the help, much appreciated. I'm now writing this on my macbook booting OS X from a portable HD.

To cut a long story short, I finally managed to retrieve all the important files from the failed volume and transfer them to the portable HD.

I managed to get a USB 2.0 portable HD, so I quickly install the OS X to the HD, waited for around 45 minutes or so, and booted from there. Finally the failed Macintosh HD volume appeared on the list of devices. But a few seconds afterwards, there's a pop up that says "the disk "Macintosh HD" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible." So I anxiously move the cursor to click the folders inside the HD, and fortunately, I was able to drag the files therein to the portable HD.

Lastly, for all the good folks who took the trouble to answer my questions and recommend any possible solutions, thanks so much. Special thanks to Mac-Michael who gave the exact terminal commands for my question. I'm sure there are other people who would benefit from the info if they met a similar situation.

Muchas gracias and cheers,
M