Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Name

disktool

Synopsis

disktool [-l | -r | -x | -y]
disktool [-d | -e | -g | -m | -p | -u | -A | -D | -S] device
disktool [ -s ] device 
                     integer_flag
disktool -n device 
                     vol_name
disktool -a device 
                     vol_name 
                     vol_flags
disktool -c userID
                  

Controls disks, including mounting, unmounting, ejecting, enabling permissions, and volume-naming. Most options require a device name argument (e.g., disk0), and some require additional parameters.

Options

-a

Adds disk to Disk Arbitration tables, to notify applications of a mounted volume. This is useful if you have forced a mount, thus bypassing standard notification.

-A

Activates permissions on the volume, adding an entry to /var/db/volinfo.database if one does not already exist.

-c

Specifies user ID of account to use when mounting disks.

-d

Removes disk from Disk Arbitration tables, to notify applications of a dismount. This is useful if you have forced a dismount, thus bypassing standard notification.

-D

Deactivates permissions on the volume.

-e

Ejects disk.

-g

Prints HFS encoding on a volume to standard output.

-l

Lists disk volumes to standard output.

-m

Mounts disk.

-n

Names volume.

-p

Unmounts partition. Device name is that of a partition (e.g., disk0s5).

-r

Refreshes Disk Arbitration tables.

-s

Sets HFS encoding on a volume. Takes encoding as additional integer argument.

-S

Prints status of volume in /var/db/volinfo.database to standard output.

-u

Unmounts disk.

-x

Disallows dismounts and ejects.

-y

Allows dismounts and ejects.