Alias pointing to hard drive

Sorry about the repeat but I first posted in the wrong forum (10.7 instead of 10.8)
Hi, strange thing has happened...
I dowloaded an application, dragged it over the Application folder (or so I think that's what I did...) and now the icon for the application is an alias that points to the hard drive.
When I click on the icon, the application is not lauched at all. I only get the icon for the hard drive. And it goes in circle, like that...
I can't throw the application in the trash to get rid of it, because I would end up throwing the hard drive in the trash (the Mac asked for authentication to do that...)
I also tried to restore with time machine but the "restore" button is not responding....
Help !

Went to the Genius Bar and it really was what I thought it was: badly done installation of an application. It seems I had not dragged the application folder over the Applications but instead had dragged the unopened .dmg....Duh...
Genius Noémie corrected the problem in no time and everything is now ok !
Lesson learned...:)

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Computer no longer recognizes mount point of hard drive

Hello all,
I have a perplexing problem here. When I was running a Verify Disk in Disk Utilities I got a "Keys Out of Order" error, and I cannot repair with either Disk Utility or using fsck.
I ran a Hardware Test and nothing was wrong, so I decided to back everything up, wipe the drive, and re-install the OS. Problem is, DIsk Utility will not let me wipe my hard drive. The mount point shows up as just "/" instead of, for example, /Volumes/My Awesome Computer. I assume this is a symptom of my "Keys out of order" error, since I can see my boot camp partition just fine and can choose to erase it if I want to.
I guess my question is, how can I wipe my Apple partition if the option is not even available to me to begin with? I tried booting up from my installation disks and doing an Archive and Install from there already, but my disks don't even recognize my Apple partition, so I can't even begin to re-install the OS from them.
My only remaining idea is to re-partition my hard drive into another Apple partition, install there, and then unpartition, but I'm not sure if that'll work. Does anyone have any clues or advice?

Update: I tried re-partitioning my drive, but that failed to initiate. I got this error: filesystem verify or repair failed.
It's the same error that I get when I tried to repair my HD with Disk Utility. So, I cannot make new partitions, and my hard drive mount point remains unrecognized by my install CDs. Yet...I can log in and use it just fine. The only manifested problem I've had with this Keys Out of Order error is that I can no longer see my Apple partition from Boot Camp, but I'm worried this problem may get just worse and worse. Help would be greatly appreciated.

Broken alias on networked hard drive

I have a hard drive connected to my Airport extreme that I've divided into 2 drives. 1 for home backups and 1 for work backups. I've got a broken alias for the home drive (the one I'm trying to backup) and can't seem to fix it.
How do I fix this broken alias?
thanks

What kind of files are they?
Do you have these installed?
Flip4Mac WMV Player from http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htm (Windows Media Player for the Mac is no longer supported, even by Microsoft)
Perian from http://perian.org/
You should read this support page http://perian.org/#support in case you need to delete older codecs. In Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime/ delete any files relating to DivX (Perian already has them), particularly any DivX extension to Safari. However it should be noted that Perian is not an internet plugin and will not play DivX files imbedded on a website. For that you will need the DivX Player browser plugin available from http://www.divx.com/en/software/mac/player

Backing up a share point (external hard drive connected to Time Capsule) using time machine.

I am currently using Mac OS X Lion, and just set up my time capsule with an external hard drive to store itunes, iPhoto libraries, etc. Is it possible to use time machine to backup the external hard drive to the 2 TB internal hard drive in the time capsule?

You cannot backup network drives with Time Machine. It will work only on HFS+ formatted local drives.
Is it possible to use time machine to backup the external hard drive to the 2 TB internal hard drive in the time capsule?
No, Time Machine is specific to backup of a local machine, locally connected disks.
If you unplug the disk and plug it into a Mac.. and if it is HFS+ formatted then you can back it up.
Otherwise you need a software like Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) but as a warning, it will be very slow. Especially if you do this over wireless.

I have an alias of one of my external hard drives in my trash. When I click on "show original" all my external H D 's and my Mac hard drive show up. How do I delete this icon from the trash without loosing all my files?

I have an alias of one of my external hard drives in my trash. When I tried to delete it, it showed that I was deleting 80,000 files and counting. I stopped the delete process and when I clicked on "show original" all my external H.D.'s and my Mac hard drive show up. How do I delete this alias from the trash without loosing all my files? When I tried to drag it back to the desk top, it just made a duplicate and remained in the trash. When I turned off the external H.D., the trash was then empty. Tried rebooting the computer and then turning the external hard drive back on and the alias shows up in the trash again. Much help appreciated.
Rich

In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
If it does contain data...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474

Alias Path Lost / Moved Copies to External Hard Drive

Expierianced user stuck!
How can I move folders holding some alias' from internal hard drive to external hard drive and maintain alias relationships?
thanx
halnbeck

If you're saying that the folders being moved contain the actual alias files, then there should be no issue.
If you're meaning that the folders being moved contain the files that are being referenced by aliases on another hard disk, then you will have issues.
An alias file, created when you use "Make Alias" contains nothing, but it creates an entry in the files resource fork that stores the important information. It stores the full pathname of the original file, and also the i-node (physical location on disk in Unix).
So you can rename files that have aliases pointing to them, move them to other folders on the same disk, and the i-node is unchanged, so the alias will still work.
You can also re-save a file with the same name, and while the i-node may have changed, if the filename is identical to previous, with the same full pathname, ie. /PowerMacG4/Users/simon/Documents/lotto.xls then the alias will be smart enough to work out the file you mean, even if the i-node references nothing).
So to answer your query, if you move files to another external volume, the aliases that refer to these files will only still be valid if you rename the external volume to be the same name as the disk where the files originally came from. You may also have to rename the original disk to avoid confusion. This may not be what you want to do, so you would have to re-create all the aliases.
I've used this many times where I've swapped out a smaller disk (containing files / folders referenced by aliases on another disk), replaced it with a bigger disk, copied all the files back (using the Finder - it was a non-boot backup disk) and renamed it to the original disk name. All the aliases worked perfectly.
Message was edited by: Simon Teale
Originally said Desktop database, meant resource fork

I have iMovie 09. I just erased my external hard drive, but it is still formatted for the mac. However, iMovie will not recognize the hard drive. It shows the only hard drive available is the computers. How do I get the external hard drive to show up?

I have iMovie 09. I just erased my external hard drive, but it is still formatted for the mac. However, iMovie will not recognize the hard drive. It shows the only hard drive available is the computers. How do I get the external hard drive to show up?

In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
If it does contain data...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474

Menu bar and hard drive icon don't appear at last stage of boot up

Machine froze trying to print a PDF document off a flash drive in Preview. Had to power off the machine. Upon restart, everything came back to life fine until the very end of the boot up process (chime fine, desktop background pictures appeared, main side tool bar program icons fine) when the top Menu title bar didn't appear nor the hard disk icon. Spinning beach ball. Never would finish the boot up process; seemed like it was still trying to finish the print job from before.
Unplugged the networked Laserjet printer, unplugged computer power, restarted. Same result. Everything is perfect for 98% of the boot process until the end. Ran Disk Utility "verify disk" and it found a couple of items. Repaired successfully. Ran "verify permissions" and found quite a few wrong. Repaired successfully. Still same problem.
Any ideas? I hate to reinstall the OS with it so close to being just fine. Machine has been very solid and stable in the current configuration. I do have a 2nd internal hard drive that has 10.3.9 on it that I can use in a pinch.
Power Mac G4 silver tower, Dual 1ghz, 2GB RAM, 10.4.11 with OS 9.2.2

While in Safe Mode, try this...
In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes".
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
Then move these files to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
/Users/<yourname>/Library/Preferences/ com.apple.systemuiserver.plist
/Users/<yourname>/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.systemuiserver.xxx.plist
where 'xxx' is a 12 digit (hexadecimal) numeric string.
This will reset your Menu Bar to the default, you'll need to go through System Preferences to reset the ones you need. (If they are already checked, uncheck them first and then recheck them).
Reboot & test.
If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport in 10.4 & below, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.
Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons

Rename Hard drive Lion

New hard drive installed via Apple store to iMac ( MacOS X Lion ) and restored via Time Capsule now start up disk is named "untitled 1", unable to change name via "get info" or desktop or disk tools.
Suggestions please.

Couple of ideas, but see what Kappy thinks about them...
In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
If it does contain data...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474
10.7.x cant write files...
Reboot up to recovery partition,
Restart holding down Option or alt key+r key
Choose mac utilities, just utilities, choose Terminal.
inside Terminal type this...
resetpassword (no spaces), hit enter, choose, mac hd, select affected account...
Reset home folder permissions and acls.

New Hard Drive can't be mounted

I've just purchased a Buffalo 500GB USB external hard drive. I formatted it, then connected it to the back of the Airport Extreme.
The Airport Disk utility, previously set up for a different HD connected to the base station, appears to see it. But if I choose Network from the sidebar menu and click on the Base station's alias to get the "Select Volumes to Mount" dialog box, the volume itself remains grayed out. Checking in Disk Utility doesn't show it either. It's as if it's very nearly there but not. I feel as if I'm missing some obvious step but as there is just the Airport utility and Airport disk utility, I'm stymied.
Help.

Rebooting the AEBS was decidedly helpful. I do have an alias of the hard drive on the desktop now, but as described above it's still grayed out...maybe it's supposed to be for all I know.
In any case, thanks for the good advice.

Hard Drive filling up: SubmitDiagInfo, /private/var & log issues

This topic is part question, part help for people I've seen having a similar problem in other threads. My issue is different enough from the other issues, that I wanted to post it as a separate topic.
I've had about 24GB of available space for weeks now. I haven't downloaded any large files recently, nor created any myself.
Suddenly I noticed the hard drive space decreasing. I went from 24GB, to 19GB, to 10GB, then 8, 5, 1.5... next thing I knew, it said I had 260MB available. This was within maybe two days, with a big ramp-down within a couple of hours this morning, while I was on a train, and not even connected to a network.
I started getting error messages saying my hard drive was full; then, I got errors saying I didn't have enough application memory, and applications were being paused, and I would have to force quit them. Within about 5 minutes, I dropped from 1.5GB to 260MB.
Thinking back, the last week or so, I remembered that sometimes when I came into my office in the morning, my Mac would be awake (I usually sleep it at the end of the day, and an error message would be displayed saying SubmitDiagInfo had crashed. I thought this might have something to do with it.
I did some detective work in these forums. I checked Activity Monitor and the Console. Sure enough, SubmitDiagInfo was taking up a bunch of CPU time.
The Console revealed I had a lot of Diagnostic Logs. I tried deleting them with the Console's Clear button, but it didn't seem to do anything. I checked with OmniDiskSweep, and sure enough, I had over 20GB of log files.
At this point, my hard drive was so full, I had to force quit OmniDiskSweep. I used the Go To Folder command and entered /private/var/log - The Diagnostic Logs folder was nearly 20GB. I deleted it and emptied the trash immediately.
I looked at the /private/var/vm folder and noticed it was also very large (10GB), but I had read elsewhere not to mess with this folder.
From the console, I quit SubmitDiagInfo.
I check my hard drive, and I'm suddenly back to 24GB free space.
When I look again at /private/var/vm, and sure enough it is 5GB smaller.
This is weird stuff, and I hope this description helps anyone else having this problem.
What's interesting is, because the /private folder is invisible, you can't use it to calculate your disk space usage. For example, the folders on my drive had the following space usage:
62.46GB34.53GB+22.96GB+4.78GB4.02GB = 128.75GB (plus a few "small" folders with maybe 300MB)
Since the drive showed 159GB total space available, I couldn't figure out where the other 30GB was.
Once I found /private/log, I could see it had 19.29GB:
62.4634.53+22.96+4.78+4.0219.29 = 148.04 - ah, this makes more sense, but I'm still missing 10GB! So, I look at /private/vm, and boom, there is the extra 10.6GB hiding. All 159GB present and accounted for.
The question I have is, of course, can anyone explain why this is happening, so I can prevent it from happening again?
I hope someone finds this helpful.

Thanks... that is helpful. I have Carbon Copy Cloner, not
Super Duper, so I will keep that solution in mind.
Do not, repeat do not, clone your current suspect hard drive
to your CCC backup. That would defeat the purpose of having
a good backup. I don't know if you can boot from you CCC
backup. That would be a good test. I was able to boot from
my SuperDuper backup and notice normal hard drive space.
In the meantime, I ran the extended system test, and the
computer passed.
Mine with the growing hard drive passed every test I had plus
the test Apple recommended. They were quick place the blame
on a Virtual Windows XP Pro. I do not thing that was the
problem. My normal Macintosh HD is usually about 52 GB
and it was showing 110 GB used and I never could figure out
what was hogging the hard drive.
Good luck!

How can I erase my hard drive if the Installer can't find it?

Our iBook, 10.3.9, was pretty reliable for 5 years, but it started to work slower the past days (maybe thru too little free space or too many programs open at the same time), so we restarted a lot.. until it didn't restart but came up with the question mark; then with a black screen/white letters asking for a login. But what is my login? I only know my admin password.
I ran DiskUtility and repaired the permissions and wanted to repair the disk as well, but it said (in red letters): unable, could not unmount disk.
I tried Archive and Install, but it stopped halfway and said there was an error, try again later. I didn't try again, but managed to save most of my documents to another iBook (10.4.3) thru FireWire Target mode.
Then I was ready for Erase & Install.
When I first got this iBook, I had a big accident and had to erase and install, at which time an Apple tech person advised me to first install 10.1 and then 10.2 ('cause this iBook was first made with 10.1, it had 10.2 when I bought it). So this morning I put my 10.1 install CD in and selected Disk Utility to Erase the hard drive. This was recommended in another thread to erase all faulty blocks on a computer. I must say the hard drive itself (below the '27 GB OSX' thing with the triangle in front of it) was already greyed out, but I selected this triangle thing and said erase.
Then I went back into the Installer but... it can't find any hard drive to install OSX on. It shows just one blank space...
The strangest thing is that one time this morning when I opened the iBook, it started up just like normal! But it worked too slow, it wasn't fine, so I restarted and then the problems came back just the same. Now I'm back atthe black screen with white letters. It makes me think though that not all is lost with this computer, which my family hopes with me.
What can I do???
ibook Mac OS X (10.3.7)

Cornelius,
ask as many questions as necessary! I know it is a confusing situation.
Your profile lists OS X 10.3.7.
I believe I upgraded last year to 10.3.9.
Do you have a Full Retail Version of Panther available for re-install?
Yes.
What OS version(s) do you have a full retail version for?
For 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3.2.
Do you have an OS currently installed on your computer?
I don't know...
This morning I had set my mind to do the Erase & Install. I inserted the 10.1 disk, opened DUtility and selected "Erase" from the tablist. At that point the hard drive under the top-triangle was already grey I believe. I selected the top line, or the grey line, am not sure which was last. The computer started to spin. I can't tell if it erased anything at that point. But I know that once the computer stopped spinning its operationwheel, I quit DU and went on trying to install, but then there was no installation disc available. There was just a blanc field.
There was nothing else to do but restart, and at that point the computer opened up with a desktop like normal. I know it sounds crazy.
But it didn't work well. I could open a jpg-file in "Preview", but went in "Mail" and it took forever to open a message, at which point I restarted.
And since then, the normal desktop hasn't shown up anymore.
Whenever I restart, I keep getting stuck at 1. a flashing icon with the picture of a globe, which changes into
2. the question-mark, then
3. the window "Mac OS" with the blue stripe, filling up almost all the way and then
3. a black screen with white letters. If I type something and press return, it asks for password. If I type anything and press return, it says 'login incorrect', and then I see a new screen with "Darwin/BSD (X-3.local) (console)..... next line: "login: "
I don't know what my login could be.
I have since started up from the 10.3 CD, but also only saw a blank field where there should be an icon of my hard drive. (at 'select destination').
Since my post, I used my Apple Hardware Test-CD, and that gave a pass. It said "No device found" for AirPort and Mass Storage. "Device found" for Modem and "Passed" for Logic Board, Memory and VideoRAM.
In any case, what I want to do is still to Erase & Install, because something seems to be very wrong and my stuff is safely backed up.
Looking forward to your answer. Thanks a lot.
ibook Mac OS X (10.3.7)

The best external hard drives for macs

Can anyone recommend a good external hard drive for a mac computer; preferably the IMac OS 10.5.6 desktop. Thanks!

Personal Experience with the One Touch Series:
Keep a VERY CLOSE EYE on that Maxtor One Touch!
I had two of the 1TB Firewire 800 models at one point. Hard drives failed on one of them within a month. Warranty replaced the unit but not the data. After a year, the tiny fans died and the drives overheated, resulting in total loss of both enclosures and all the data on them (within a week of each other).
Those things are not meant for continuous use. If you only use them for periodic backup purposes, and then shut them off, they may be fine.
Maxtor's setup software for the Mac was a PITA, too. The version included on the disc was worthless. Disk label indicated one version, actual version on the disc was an older, incompatible version. Maxtor sent a replacement disc. It was the same disc with the same problem. Finally located the correct installer on their website. That was a few years ago.
I'll never touch the touch series again as a result.
On the other hand, I've had a SmartDisk FireLite 60 GB (FireWire model) for my Powerbook for 5 years now with excellent performance. I have no problem recommending SmartDisk drives.
-mt

Hard drive icon appears as folder icon in dock

When I drag the hard drive icon for any of my hard drives (Mac Pro) to the dock, a folder icon rather than hard drive icon appears in the dock. It functions properly, accessing the full drive, but is harder to distinguish from the other folders in the dock.
Why does this happen? Is there any way to get the hard drive icon to appear in the dock?

Welcome to Apple Discussions,
Why does this happen?
Directories (like the Hard drive) show up as folders when added to the dock.
Is there any way to get the hard drive icon to appear in the dock?
You bet. Make an alias to the Hard Drive (you can put it inside the hard drive itself if you like). Then drag the alias to the dock. It will show up as the drive.
Hope the helps.

Unable to "see" start-up Hard Drive

Here's an interesting scenario - any ideas?
1) My iMac will not boot. I get the flashing question mark folder
2) I boot from the install DVD and try Disk Utility - it does not "see" a hard drive at all
3) I then boot from TechTools Pro and attempt a drive/volume repair - doesn't "see" the drive
4) I attempt to boot from the install DVD, pressing "D" to get into Hardware Test - after awhile, it just ejects the DVD and goes back to the flashing folder/question mark
5) Then, I tried connecting to a laptop and booting the iMac in Target mode. It's all sadness... the flashing firewire symbol appears, but nothing shows-up on the laptop.
Is there a way to do a low-level format on the hard-drive or boot into some diagnostic mode that can test my HD controller to make sure it's working? Or... should I just assume the HD is gone?
To make it really interesting - the exact same problem is happening on a MacBook I have! The odds have to be long that two hard drives would fail at the same time.
I'm wondering if one of my users didn't use File Vault or something and end-up "killing" the drive? If someone uses FileVault and I just want to blow-off the machine and go back to a generic install - is it possible?

I agree with George Peters, the symptoms point to hard drive failure. If you haven't tried this, you could try booting in Safe Mode
What is Safe Mode
Carolyn

Alias pointing to hard drive

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