Hard Drive name changed on it's own.

Hi there.
On starting my Mac Mini this morning I noticed that the hard drive name had changed from "Mac HD" to "/" without any input from myself.
does anyone have an idea what may have occured ?
Thank's.

Try using GrandPerspective to see what's taking up all the space.
Also, make sure everything you don't need is turned off under Sharing; it's possible that you left file sharing on without a password and someone is taking advantage of that.
If you have a MobileMe account, do you have iDisk Syncing turned on? Or something similar if you have Dropbox or another similar service?

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My External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only

my External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only on its own?
I went to get info and scrolled down to the Sharing and Permissions
But there is nothing there but a greyed out : You can only read
There are No boxes to check or uncheck, No options to change to read and write, No name of owner or ignore ownership box. NOTHING ELSE IS THERE
HELP!
I have recently upgraded to Mountain Lion and am having other problems as well

Click on the external HDD icon COMMAND+I. You should see a display such as this:
You should be logged on as the administrator. Click on the lock icon. It should open and allow you to make the required changes.
Ciao.

External hard drives suddenly changed to read only

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Mac hard drive name

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When I attempt to open an Excel file, I get an error message indicating invalid path name...that it contains a symbol like \. I've never updated my hard drive name, unless it happened when my computer was being repaired at Apple. I've only had 2 repairs done to it: the cd drive replaced and a small board that controls the battery charging.
I can change the name of the hard drive to something like MAC_HD_MSilva, but I wanted to make sure this wouldn't cause any issues. From reading posts...the name doesn't seem to matter.

HT1364 I have moved my library to an external hard drive and changed the location of the iTunes media folder in Preferences, but every time I close and re-open iTunes, I have to do it all over again. How can I make the iTunes media folder change permanen

I have moved my library to an external hard drive and changed the location of the iTunes media folder in Preferences, but every time I close and re-open iTunes, I have to do it all over again. How can I make the iTunes media folder change permanent? I have an older machine with Windows XP.

I don't believe mounting the hard drive should be necessary, unless you have several external drives and want your computer to recognise them as folders, rather than drives. I've never had to mount a hard drive, ever. If you don't know how to do it, then it shouldn't be necessary now.
Try this:
Prepare iTunes so that it can see the external drive.
Make a note of which drive-letter the external drive has been allocated. (Look in Windows Exploer)
Look at the file location for a song. Make sure it plays (and therefore that iTunes has found it). Highlight it and select File/Get Info/Summary>Where: and make a note of the drive letter for that song.
Close and shut down the computer.
The next time you turn the computer on again, connect the external drive
Before you start iTunes - check the external drive in Windows Explorer. Is it ready, does it have the same drive-letter that it had last time? Can you go into the drive and see the files on it?
Once you can, start iTunes. (If the drive lettter has changed, you need to work out why before going any further.)
If iTunes fails to find your external drive, you need to check where iTunes is looking for your Library.
Select the same song you checked before (presumably iTunes can no longer find it). Follow the procedure for locating it. You should be able to see where iTunes thinks the file is. It's the drive that counts. Which drive letter is iTunes looking at? Is it the same one that it was previously (which should also be the same one that the drive has now).
What happens, which step do you have problems with?
Message was edited by: the fiend

Itunes cannot locate my files on the external hard drive - I changed preferences but still not locating songs?

itunes cannot locate my files on the external hard drive - I changed preferences but still not locating songs?

This work for the most part:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20361846#20361846

"revert" deleted hard drive name in disk utility HELP!!

I booted my wifes macbook pro 10.4.11 in target mode and connected it to my computer, macbook pro 10.5.6 and went into my disk utility to create a partition in the other computer. I used my disk utility from 10.5.6 because for some reason it got erased from the 10.4.11
so I started to do 2 partitions. It said there was not enough room so I clicked on "revert" and for some reason the name of the "macintosh hd" disappeared and I ejected the computer in target mode. Then when I tried to start it up, it just kept flashing a folder with a question mark. I booted again in target mode but still no "indented" "macintosh hd". it seems like it came unmounted maybe?
I have tried starting from x key, resetting pram, trying to load from install disc (which gets to the point where it asks where to install the OS and no HD shows up to choose) and even taking it to the apple store where they said the HD is damaged and/or corrupt. Before trying to reclaim the files, if I can, I wanted to see if anyone had this same issue and if it was solvable. I cant believe that I hit "revert" and it erased my hard drive name and it automatically made my HD corrupt or damaged?
PLEASE help anyone!
or if this is a lost cause, is there a good file recovery program where I can get my WIFES files back! Yeah, I am in trouble.
Thanks!

If anything can be recovered at all, you should quit using the computer asap. The more you use it the more OSX will write over those spots where the files were.
Data Rescue II...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
(Has a Free Demo to see if it could or not, but you'll need another drive to recover to).
Or FileSalvage...
http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?%20mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
to recover what you can.
BUT, you'll need that other Mac with this one in FW Target Mode
BTW, don't use Leopards Disk Utility to do anything to a Tiger Hard Drive.

IPod sync problems after hard-drive upgrade/change

Hello all,
Can anyone PLEASE help?
I have just had my hard drive upgraded/changed from the original 640GB drive to a new 2TB drive. I've also had an additional 4GB of RAM added to now give me 8GB RAM.
Absolutely everything else seems to be working fine (unusual for me and I'm often at the end of bad luck in such circumstances). The only thing I'm having problems with is syncing my iPod Classic with iTunes. Incidentally, I have the latest version of iTunes and my iPod software was up to date the last time I checked.
Before I go further, my system specs are:
iMac
24-inch, Early 2009
Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB
Software OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 (12C60)
When I connect my iPod Classic, the iPod screen initially shows 'Synchronisation in progress' (or whetver similar wording it actually is)... but this is just very briefly. It then indicates "Connected", and that's the way it stays and doesn't change at all.
It takes time to actually show up in iTunes, and when it does, I now have to very quickly click the iPod button (to bring up the iPod screen on iTunes) before the pointer turns into the spinning beach ball.
Now, it hangs... and hangs... and hangs... and hangs.
During this, I notice that "Manually manage music and videos" is ticked (which I didn't have ticked before), and also 'Enable disc use' is also ticked, although greyed out.
Occasionally, the spinning beach ball will disappear and the pointer will return, but this is very very briefly and I have a split-second to try unticking - first - the "Manually manage music and videos" box and then - later, if I'm lucky - untick the 'Enable disc use' box. However, on the odd occasion I've managed this, I haven't been able to go further except for two occasions when I managed to click "Apply". The iPoid on those to occasions started to update... but went nowhere... it just did nothing.
When the thing finally just hangs and hangs, I eventually have to 'force quit' iTunes and unplug the iPod without first ejecting. There was one other occasion when I managed to - split-second when the spinning beach ball disappeared - to click "eject" and the iPod succesfully did so.
There were a couple of occasions in the past when I had trouble with my iPhone and was told to delete/trash the iPhone photo cache folder. Remembering this, I tried this for the iPod (iPod photo cache) and it made no difference... same situation.
I did notice on one occasion at the beginning of all this that when I managed to unplug my iPod from iTunes, all the album covers were missing from the iPod (although still in iTunes). This was long before I tried deleting the iPod photo cache folder though.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards
BionicDan

First things first the spinning beach ball is usually an indication that Search is going nuts.
Turn off Search entire Library by clicking on the downward pointing arrow to the right of the Magnisying glass and untick Search entire library.
Is your music still in iTunes on your new hard drive or is it only on your ipod?
If it is in your itunes then you should be able to plug in the iPod and uncheck Manually Manage music and sync
If the music is only on the ipod connect up as above click on the device and Drag all the music from your device to the library. then you can uncheck manually manage music and sync as normal

I formatted my ext hard drive and changed it to mac os x extended(journaled). then i put in all my data back. after a while, i insert the hard drive but my macbook cannot read it. plz help

i formatted my ext hard drive and changed it to mac os x extended(journaled). then i put in all my data back. after a while, i insert the hard drive but my macbook cannot read it. plz help

SanandaDutta
tried on a different mac. The same problem exists.
If that is the case, its extremely unlikely you have a bad USB cable on the seagate, rather as I mentioned earlier a bad SATA bridge card.
If the Seagate 1TB USB external wont open on either Mac and youve verified same (try a diff. USB cable if you have one however this is nearly never the case),....then to get the data off that HD (unless it is dead which is also extremely unlikely),......then you would need to extract the HD from its case and insert same into either a HD dock or USB HD enclosure.
8 out of 10 seemingly dead inopperable 1-3+ year old external HD are perfectly fine, rather the cheap 50 cent SATA bridge card fries and dies (alas)
reply back if you need help in extracting same.

My iMac hard drive name is just backslashes

I have an iMac running OS X 10.9.4

Could be some accident, keyboard commands were chosen & highlighted
the icon of desktop items, and then later, if finder/desktop was clicked or
somehow became the default window, bumping any key could do it.
You can choose desktop items all by keyboard action, + click enter to open
in some instances. There are several shortcuts going way back to early
Mac OS that still do things. Not necessarily the same things in OS X.
Cycling through several items on the desktop by up/down is then possible;
if you happen across the correct keys, even by accident.
{Kids are almost famous for choosing Accessibility preferences; such as
those to turn the desktop into a chalkboard negative effect}
Not sure if you can lock a hard drive name (as you can an application)
in the case of my Macs hard drives, the shorter name in-icon uses HD
or HDD to avoid longer name issues.
I've had a few dozen/dozen Macs and some of these kinds of things are
not so new to me. On rarer occasion, a few others can still be strange...
Good luck & happy computing!
edited

Applescript for recognizing hard drive names (Chronosync)

I'm looking for a reliable, flexible and "idiot proof" backup system and am currently considering Chronosync for the job.
By "idiot proofing" the system I basically mean that the setup should keep track of source/destination drives in a multiple drive setup (I have a 4-bay Firewire enclosure and several removable hard drives each with a unique name) so I don't risk backing up to the wrong drives etc.
I've asked customer support at Chronosync if their software can detect hard drive names and was told it can't, but I could create an AppleScript that would prompt me to connect a drive, and set that as a pre-sync script in the Options Panel of ChronoSync, in the Scripts section.
Unfortunately I don't know much about Chronosync, nor do I have any knowledge of Applescripting. Does anyone here know of a readily available solution or have other suggestions?

I gave that script a short test... should work. =)
Remember to check (cancel on script error) because the script creates an error when you select "Cancel Backup" in it's dialogs:
-- 24.05.2011 hubionmac.com
-- can be added as as a pref-sync script to a ChronoSync-Job to ask the user
-- to connect a missing source/destination volume if needed
--https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3075920
tell application "ChronoSync"
set mysource to leftTargetPath of document 1
set mydesti to rightTargetPath of document 1
if mysource starts with "/Volumes/" then
set mydelimiter to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
set sourceName to text item 3 of mysource
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to mydelimiter
else
tell application "Finder" to set sourceName to name of startup disk
end if
if mydesti starts with "/Volumes/" then
set mydelimiter to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
set destiName to text item 3 of mydesti
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to mydelimiter
else
tell application "Finder" to set destiName to name of startup disk
end if
tell application "Finder" to set drivenames to name of every disk
set cancelbackup to false
if sourceName is not in drivenames then
repeat until 1 = 0
set myaction to button returned of (display dialog "Source disk (" & sourceName & ") is not mountet!" buttons {"Check again!", "Cancel Backup"} default button 1 giving up after 30)
if myaction = "Check again!" then
tell application "Finder" to set drivenames to name of every disk
if sourceName is in drivenames then
exit repeat
end if
else
set cancelbackup to true
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
end if
if cancelbackup is false then
if destiName is not in drivenames then
repeat until 1 = 0
set myaction to button returned of (display dialog "Destination disk (" & destiName & ") is not mountet!" buttons {"Check again!", "Cancel Backup"} default button 1 giving up after 30)
if myaction = "Check again!" then
tell application "Finder" to set drivenames to name of every disk
if destiName is in drivenames then
exit repeat
end if
else
set cancelbackup to true
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
end if
end if
if cancelbackup is true then error "Canceling"
end tell

The name of my hard drive has changed on strange letters or some words chosen by random.

I have iMac (2011) with OS X Lion 10.7.4, and I noticed that name of my hard drive has been changing on strange letters or some words chosen by random. It's quite strange. I have other apple computers and I have never experienced such things. I can't find any logical explanation of this "activity". Sometimes it happens after sleeping mode, sometimes there is no activity from my side or from OS. How to fix it? What should I do?
Update: I don't have any cats or other animals that can walk on my keyboard. This is definitely not because of "accidentally pressed an icon of my HD and then pressed some keys" issue.
Message was edited by: Guzzz

Gremlins.

Change hard drive name

Will iMovie '11 have a problem if I change the name of my external hard drive? If so, how can I work around this?
Thanks, jan

Good question. iMovie will not be able to find your files, and all your projects will have Yellow Triangles indicating that clips are missing. So don't change the name.
If you do want to change the name, I would recommend that you first move all the Events to another drive, using iMovie to make the move. (To do this, first click VIEW/EVENTS BY VOLUME. Then hold down the Command Key as you drag the small event icon in the Event Library List to the small icon for the Drive in the Event Library List.)
Then change the name of the drive. Once you have changed it, you can move everything back using iMovie.

I think leopard changed my external hard drive name

Path in 10.4.10 was /Volumes/LaCie 1/wow movies/
Path in Leopard is /Volumes/LaCie 1/wow movies/
Dunno how the extra space-1 got in there. Nothing changed but the upgrade to leopard.
Is this normal or what?? Might explain some weird external hard drive problems.
MBP July 07
Firewire 800 160GB Lacie external hard drive

I don't see an extra space. In any case this is the Tiger forum area and perhaps your query would be better placed in the leopard forum area.

External Hard drive Permissions changed to "read only"

I use a Seagate Slim Drive (500GB) on my Macbook Pro (Late 2012, Retina, 13"), to store movies and tv shows and whatnot. Last night, I was watching a movie and everything was fine. I ejected the drive after use and it stayed that way overnight. This morning, I tried to connect it, but the partition refuses to mount. I got a friend to help me run command prompt diagnostics using terminal, which revealed that the permissions had suddenly changed to "read only". I really need to access the data on this drive because some of the movies in there are part of an important project that could hopefully land me job. Any help is welcome.

1. Select the external hard drives icon
2. Right-click > Get Info (cmd + i)
3. Expand the Sharing & Permission column
4. Click on the lock at the bottom right
* You will be prompted for an administrator name and password *
5. Once unlocked change the permission for user, group & everyone to read & write
6. Click the little gear right below and select “Apply to enclosed items…”

Hard Drive name changed on it's own.

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