Recover Data from a Mac without Target Disk Mode

Adam Jahnke

March 14, 2016

I was recently trying to pull data off of an iMac for a friend, but didn't have any Macs around with FireWire ports to get at the iMac HD in target disk mode¹. This method does require an external hard drive.

Start up your Mac in single-user mode², then run the following commands³:

# Check the filesystem
/sbin/fsck -y

# Mount the root volume
mount -uw /

# Create mount destination
mkdir /Volumes/backup

# Get a list of available drives
df -h

# Plug in USB backup drive, look for new drive name
df -h

# Mount the drive with the name you got from last step. Probably looks
# something like /dev/rdisk2s2. Note the rdisk / disk name difference.
mount -t hfs /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/backup

# rsync data to your backup
rsync -ahz /Users/you/ /Volumes/backup/

¹Share files between two computers with target disk mode: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201462

²How to start up your Mac in single-user or verbose mode: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201573

³Mount USB Memory Sticks in single user mode: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030714194313542