How to do backups to an external disk inside emergency mode

[Tim]

Allegedly, on or about 28 January 2013, Paul Smith sent:
> My computer is a branded one and only 2 years old -- so, it was hard
> to believe that its hard disk was dying or being corrupted. 

That's really not a good way to gauge it.  Some time ago I swore of
Western Digital drives, after having several drives die within a couple
of years.

There are spontaneous failures, bad manufacturing, bad handling, failing
power supplies, faults on the computer motherboard (or daughterboard, if
the drive interface isn't built in), and bumps to the drive while it's
spinning.  The last being a self-caused fault by a lot of people, who
move their computer box around while it's running.  It doesn't take a
large knock to damage a drive.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp
Linux 3.6.11-5.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Jan 8 21:40:51 UTC 2013 x86_64

All mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted, there is no point
trying to privately email me, I will only read messages posted to the
public lists.