MAJOR MELTDOWN - Installed Catalina and can no longer reboot - memory issues

[volumegarage]

Hi Julian - Yes. I have experience with Terminal and command line instructions.

 

[0403979]

Hi Julian - Yes. I have experience with Terminal and command line instructions.

Then open the Terminal app from Internet Recovery and copy the files from the data partition.

 

[volumegarage]

Thanks bcollett,

This sounded like a good suggestion because I had seen that snapshot in my 6 days wrestling with this issue.

However, when I boot up using Internet Recovery, and change directories to get the root directory cd /

I entered the suggestion:
tmutil listlocalsnapshots /System/Volumes/Data

I get a response that reads: "command not found"

Again, my terminal window from the Disk Utility is using a bash 3.2 version which seems odd.

Suggestions?
[doublepost=1560108860][/doublepost]Ok Julian,

I'm fair with terminal and thought about this is well.

What is your suggestion from copying the files?

I've used this but run into errors with bash

cp materialize ../../../../../Volumes/SeagateBackup

The tab shows a folder in that path above, but the bash prompt comes back with No such file or directory.

 

[0403979]

Thanks bcollett,

This sounded like a good suggestion because I had seen that snapshot in my 6 days wrestling with this issue.

However, when I boot up using Internet Recovery, and change directories to get the root directory cd /

I entered the suggestion:
tmutil listlocalsnapshots /System/Volumes/Data

I get a response that reads: "command not found"

Again, my terminal window from the Disk Utility is using a bash 3.2 version which seems odd.

Suggestions?
[doublepost=1560108860][/doublepost]Ok Julian,

I'm fair with terminal and thought about this is well.

What is your suggestion from copying the files?

I've used this but run into errors with bash

cp materialize ../../../../../Volumes/SeagateBackup

The tab shows a folder in that path above, but the bash prompt comes back with No such file or directory.

I'm confused at what you're trying to do. If you're trying to copy a folder you need to use -R

 

[volumegarage]

I'm confused at what you're trying to do. If you're trying to copy a folder you need to use -R

I'm referring to how to copy files from the Desktop of the iMac with the Catalina Problem
- I have booted up in Internet Recovery Mode
- Using Disk Utility, I've opened up Terminal (the terminal window shows a bash window)
- I typed in a command tmutil listlocalsnapshots - Error reads "command not found"
- I tried to cp files from the Desktop which I can navigate . Volumes/User/davidcate/Desktop
- to a new folder on an external hard drive

cp -R materialize ../../../../../Volumes/Seagate/

Material is a folder with many files and directories
/Seagate is the path back to my external hard drive

Error reads: "no such file or directory."

 

[0403979]

I'm referring to how to copy files from the Desktop of the iMac with the Catalina Problem
- I have booted up in Internet Recovery Mode
- Using Disk Utility, I've opened up Terminal (the terminal window shows a bash window)
- I typed in a command tmutil listlocalsnapshots - Error reads "command not found"
- I tried to cp files from the Desktop which I can navigate . Volumes/User/davidcate/Desktop
- to a new folder on an external hard drive

cp -R materialize ../../../../../Volumes/Seagate/

Material is a folder with many files and directories
/Seagate is the path back to my external hard drive

Error reads: "no such file or directory."

Why do you use all those "../"s? A simple "cp -R /Volumes/*Data/Users/davidcate /Volumes/Seagate/" should work to copy your whole use directory to your external drive.

 

[volumegarage]

Why do you use all those "../"s? A simple "cp -R /Volumes/*Data/Users/davidcate /Volumes/Seagate/" should work to copy your whole use directory to your external drive.

Thanks Julian,

Sorry for the confusion but I want to try this and still not working as expected. I'm not an expert with Unix commands, so I appreciate your patience.

My Desktop on the corrupt iMac is in this directory from root
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ -\ Data/Users/davidcate/Desktop

This is where all my files are located.

I would like to copy them here to this external hard drive from root
/Volumes/Seagate\ Backup\ Plus\ A\ Drive/

How would your command work under those circumstances?

I tried the one you responded with - to no avail. Thanks/

 

[coolbreeze2]

OP's original problem could have been solved by deleting the huge Time Machine local snapshots. I think he had a lot of them and then downloaded Xcode which is huge itself. That's why hard drive was full. It happens after upgrading the OS. I had the same problem but I couldn't even download Xcode because my disk was so full.

In terminal I did this:
tmutil listlocalsnapshots /System/Volumes/Data

That gave me a list of local snapshots. Then I deleted each one by doing this:
tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2019-06-06-110037

Where 2019-06-06-110037 is the listed snapshot.

It freed over 80GB of space!!!

 

[0403979]

Thanks Julian,

Sorry for the confusion but I want to try this and still not working as expected. I'm not an expert with Unix commands, so I appreciate your patience.

My Desktop on the corrupt iMac is in this directory from root
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ -\ Data/Users/davidcate/Desktop

This is where all my files are located.

I would like to copy them here to this external hard drive from root
/Volumes/Seagate\ Backup\ Plus\ A\ Drive/

How would your command work under those circumstances?

I tried the one you responded with - to no avail. Thanks/

Try "cp -R /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ -\ Data/Users/davidcate/Desktop /Volumes/Seagate\ Backup\ Plus\ A\ Drive/"

 

[volumegarage]

Try "cp -R /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ -\ Data/Users/davidcate/Desktop /Volumes/Seagate\ Backup\ Plus\ A\ Drive/"

Thanks Julian,

I'm making some progress now. The copy command is copying all those Desktop files to my blank hard drive. I had to clear off that hard drive - move files to another hard drive and now I've got a clean boot with Catalina and working my way through backing the files up.

Again - I appreciate your helpful supportive suggestions.

With regard to UNIX - Is there a command that will allow me to copy and adjust the default time outs?

I have several drone files which are large and when the cp hits a directory with large files, I'm getting output in terminal that states "Operation Timed Out"

Do you know of something that would help prevent that?

 

[0403979]

Thanks Julian,

I'm making some progress now. The copy command is copying all those Desktop files to my blank hard drive. I had to clear off that hard drive - move files to another hard drive and now I've got a clean boot with Catalina and working my way through backing the files up.

Again - I appreciate your helpful supportive suggestions.

With regard to UNIX - Is there a command that will allow me to copy and adjust the default time outs?

I have several drone files which are large and when the cp hits a directory with large files, I'm getting output in terminal that states "Operation Timed Out"

Do you know of something that would help prevent that?

I'm glad you're making some progress. Unfortunately, I don't know how to solve that issue. I've never encountered an issue like that.

 

[volumegarage]

Thanks again Julian. I am able to retrieve all files now and indexing is in progress. Thanks to everyone for their time.

I've been working with Macs since the IIsi - always downloaded the latest versions of the OS just to stay on top. Not gonna happen again

Good kharma to all who tried to help. I appreciate your time.

 

[0403979]

Thanks again Julian. I am able to retrieve all files now and indexing is in progress. Thanks to everyone for their time.

I've been working with Macs since the IIsi - always downloaded the latest versions of the OS just to stay on top. Not gonna happen again

Good kharma to all who tried to help. I appreciate your time.

I saw your thread a few days ago and ignored it. Then I saw it again recently and just thought "Ah whatever, I'll see what I can do." There's nothing wrong with using beta software, just make sure you have another volume, disk, or even Mac in case something goes wrong. Let us know how it goes and good luck to you on your future endeavours.

 

[mrmister]

Glad to see this worked out.

 

[bchery21]

Same. I would be lying if I said I understood any of this but happy their was a positive outcome at the end...