Can't mount Mac disks (using live CD on MacBook)

Can anyone help a Mac user who has resorted to Linux to rescue files from a defective LaCie NAS?
I have burned an openSUSE 12.1/KDE iso to use as a “live CD” on my Macbook. It is working as expected (I can connect the disk from the NAS via a USB adaptor and see the Ext3 partitions and the all-important XFS partition containing my data), except that neither my internal HD, nor any Firewire connected HDs that are using the Mac filesystem, can be mounted.
I have installed the HFS packages hfsutils and xhfsutil that YaST found for me. Sometimes a fleeting dialog box that could be for authentication appears for split second.
Sysinfo reports the Mac disks as “hfsplus” and there is a folder of that name deep in the *nix tree, but I am beginning to think that my problem is that I need extra installs to handle HFS+
My workaround has been to copy to another NAS via FTP, but it is very slow compared to a directly attached (and Mac formatted) HD.
For a confirmed Mac user to have got this far by trial and error is actually a great tribute to your system, so I would like to overcome this last hurdle.
P.S. Two questions for my education: Where does the 3.5 GiB Ext4 partition created by SUSE live (I only have 2GB RAM)? After I get the HFS(+) question solved, I assume I can burn a custom live CD with the final configuration- any pointers to how?

On 08/22/2012 05:16 PM, Dark Fiber wrote:
> Two questions for my education: Where does the 3.5 GiB Ext4
> partition created by SUSE live (I only have 2GB RAM)? After I get the
> HFS(+) question solved, I assume I can burn a custom live CD with the
> final configuration- any pointers to how?

i can’t help at all with your Mac questions…but there are several
around with Mac expertise…so, be patient as one or more will discover
your post, eventually (you might PM please_try_again
<http://forums.opensuse.org/member.php?userid=10877> and nicely ask him
to check in on http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?t=477615)

the custom live CD you crave is probably best made at
http://susestudio.com/ where you will find an amazing opportunity to
learn a LOT…so, gather some patience before you go there and begin
studying/self-teaching, it is a pretty steep slope to climb, but the pay
off is HIGH and the cost is LOW (like zero)…enjoy

my real answer to your “How to push 3.5 GIB in 2 GiB RAM” is: i don’t know…

my guess is its done with compression…while, the the sleek and fast
12.1 is running in less than .3 or so GiB

welcome to openSUSE…set yourself free.


dd

You don’t use hfsutils (i.e hmount) to mount a hfs+ partition on your local hard disk. You use:

$ su -l
# mount -t hfsplus /dev/sdaX /mnt

where sdaX describes your hfsplus partition (could be sda1, sda2, sda3, etc)

It will be mounted read only though.

On 2012-08-22 18:24, dd@home.dk wrote:
> my real answer to your “How to push 3.5 GIB in 2 GiB RAM” is: i don’t know…
>
> my guess is its done with compression…while, the the sleek and fast 12.1 is running in less
> than .3 or so GiB

Or in swap, if it exists, I guess.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

Thanks for replying.
Do you mean that at present, while HFS can be mounted R/W, HFS+ can only be mounted RO?

AFAIK you could with hfsprogs (which includes mkfs.hfsplus and fsck.hfsplus), but I don’t see a recent build for openSUSE. It’s available for Ubuntu. Maybe it would be easier if you install it on an Ubuntu live system with this command:

$ sudo apt-get install hfsprogs

But I don’t know how safe it is. And you’d do it at your own risk.
You might have to disable journaling on the OS X side with disk utilities.

See these pages fro more info:

Thanks again for replying with much food for thought.
I had considered using a different Linux distro but had wrongly assumed they were the same for low level stuff.
I will look again at your info pages but since I don’t want to risk my internal or external HFS+ disks, it may be that the slow way I came up with for myself is the best available solution to what is, after all, a very narrow objective.
Thanks once again.