Hard drive on desktop

Okay so my brother game me his WD mybook 400GB and I plug it into my mac but the computer doesn't reconize the hard drive. When i say doesnt reconize i mean its just like i never plugged it in, nothing shows up. Can anyone help please?

Is it formatted using a filesystem that Mac OS X supports?
Open up Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities) and see if you see the drive in there.
OS X can detect most filesystems like all BSD systems, but there are those it doesn't particularly like. NTFS being one of them. Though I think you should be able to at least READ it...
UFS is another large questionmark...

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External hard drives and desktop

Hi, and happy new year.
I use several hard drives, Firewire 400 & 800 mostly, but query would apply to USB also.
When i connect a drive it appears in a random position on my desktop ( I have a fairly cluttered desktop), is there any way to ensure that drives appear below my startup drive, nice and neat? If I'm using partitioned drives then all partitions would be nice in one neat column, rather than around the desktop. Is there away to organise them in the dock?
regards, alan bell in uk

No problem.
(1) Click on the Finder icon in the Dock. If your dock is on the bottom of the screen, it is the icon on the far left.
(2) Now, look at the menu called Finder at the top left of your screen and find "Preferences there". Or, you can just press command-, (command-comma).
(3) Anyway, once the Preference window opens select the category "General" from the choices there. You will see a list of things which you can choose to have displayed on the Desktop. Make your selections and close the window.
charlie

Can not see hard drive on desktop after reinstalling Mountain Lion

I have erased my hard drive and reinstalled Mountain Lion 10.8.4 and now I can not see the MacIntosh HD on the desk top. Downloaded the most recent updates and restarted but still do not see the hard drive on the desk top. Any ideas?

Open Finder preferences and on the general tab check Hard disks for Show these items on the desktop.

Mac book pro + external hard drive plus desktop with ethernet router combo

Can anyone advise - for or against / solutions that might be possible as I'm considering time capsule.
Currently
Desktop = Mac Pro - 230GB hard drive no wireless card.
One ethernet port going to router into which my broadband is piped. Out of the router - ethernet to plug in lap top in other room (hubby not so found of wireless).
Back up = 500GB external formac drive (noisy and vibrates) connected via fire wire. All my photos and music go direct to the formac drive (are not on desktop or laptop).
I do backup of documents from desktop to the external hardrive manually.
I have a mac book pro which I access the internet by the the ethernet (but don't think I can file share because of the router which I think just pipes the internet to both computers).
*What I would like to do*
1) Access documents from the desktop vire wireless when working on laptop.
2) Continue to store photos and music without clogging up my desktop hard drive.
3) Get a quieter external hard drive (been noisy since day 1)
4) Easy backup of of photos and music (at the moment only one copy exists on hard drive which I am concerned about (other than DVD).
5) Turn wireless off when not working on laptop - hubby concerned about privacy and I work from home so have confidential material I have to guarentee is secure.
Can any one point me to whether time capsule and or other bits would meet my needs?
Thanks - Lou

1) is doable I use that functionality Even from Pennsylvania to Michigan
2) I use the TC as backup for my primary hard drive although I always use two back up hard drives for my primary. I use the Finder not Time Machine.
3) The LaCie d2 or the quadra work fine with TC. They are quiet and sleep appropriately.
4) is doable and related to your one.
5) secure your router and wireless setup is not a problem.
You can also use the setup of the external to interact with ATV. Like streaming movies to ATV

Hard Drive and Desktop Icons Have Disappeared From Dessktop

I can locate all the files and access them via "search" and clicking on them, but can't see them on the desktop.
Problem started with difficulty using Spotlight, which eventually led to a freeze and when I restarted, the images were gone.
Have already tried: (1) Disk First Aid, which found a couple of minor problems, but was unable to complete the verification test,stating "underlying disk needs repair" and "1 HFS volume checked needs repair. . . (2) Trashing the Finder preference (which had no effect) . . . and (3) Restarting — both from the existing OS, as well as the Mac OS X Install CD. Tried several times with the latter (holding down the C key), but it did not override the damaged system.
Can't remember the last time I had to reinstall a system, bu it probably was at least 5 years Ago, if not longer, so am hoping to avoid that. Also have found a few directions online (and in an Apple document) that require rewriting a script, which scares me even more, since I've NEVER done that and am concerned about messing up my system even further.
Am hoping there's an easy fix that does not require taking the computer in for service.

Sorry. I am NOT using 10.2.
I am using 10.4.11!
Also working with the original set of disks that came with the computer.
The first time I tried to boot with the Software Install disk, I assumed it had not booted properly, because the entire desktop (such as it was . . . i.e., just a few assorted folders, apps down the side and icons for the install disk appeared with with it.)
The same thing happened when I held down the shift key while booting.
Both times when I tried to use Disk First Aid, a message stated that it was not compatible with the current OS.
And no, I did not think to see which OS was active either time. But I wouldn't be surprised to find 9.2 (Classic), . . . one of the operating systems identified on the disk) which was available as an option at that time, for users still using software that had not yet been updated by the manufacturers.
But even if I had thought of that, I probably also would have tried to avoid loading OS 10.0.4 if I didn't have to. (Why take an unnecessary step backward?)
Fast forward to today: My computer is still working. Miraculously, Spotlight has reappeared (on its own). I think I can access all or most of the files on my computer by using "search" . . . but the only ones currently on my desktop (and reappearing after a shutdown) are the few that op up at random, when Iaccidentally hit the "G" spot.
The icons for the hard drive and other peripherals still don't show up . . . which, in combiation with the missing file icons suggests to me that I still have a problem,which I would rather repair now, than wait for it to multiply or cause a major, irretrievable crash.

How to install Windows XP on a new hard drive in desktop computer

Have a Lenovo desktop. I replaced the defective hard drive. Obtained Windows XP installation disks from Lenovo. I received recovery two
Recovery CDs, namely Rescue and Recovery CD and Product Recovery CD along with 5 CD Roms ( 1of 5 through 5of 5).
I want to install Windows XP in my new Hitachi hard drive. Should I use only the 5 CD ROMS 1 thru 5, leaving out the Recovery and Rescue CD
and Product Recovery CD Rom.
How to I install Window XP in my new hard drive? I am not a computer
wizard. As a retired IBM senior citizen I need some help from the community. I am not cognizant with the steps to follow. I am a new
member of this great community.
Thanks a bunch ! padman
personal informations removed for your own security

padman215, welcome to the forum,
you need to boot from the Rescue and Recovery cd and select to recover the system and then to recover to factory state. It will then eventually ask for the other discs.
Please be sure that you read the messages carefully; if it asks for a supplementary disc, (which you don't seem to have), you need to click on "no" should it ask for one - this throws alot of people.
Happy installing
Andy ______________________________________
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Can't see external hard drive on desktop

I have an external firewire drive that will not appear on my desktop. I can see it if I use Disk Utility and I've run a check on the drive and it appears ok. I plugged the drive into a different computer and it showed up fine, but when I put it back on this computer, no go.
Any ideas?

Brian, you could try installing the hard drive internally with your boot drive, jumpers set to slave or cable select depending on your setup. I had this happen once before and I had to reformat the drive from the IDE cable.
Also look at the jumpers settings, especially if it is WD. They have a different setting for Master and Single unlike most other major brands.
Since you can see it in DU try Disk Repair and Repairing Permissions and try mounting it from the DU upper menu also.
Joe
Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.5 GB Ram, ENCORE/ST G4, Tempo SATA, ATI Radeon 9000, Adaptec 4000

Two hard drives on desktop

applefans...
the other day, my 9 year old (Mr. Pad Inc. - a budding developer) some how created a second hard drive on our iMac Flat Panel. I am guessing that the hard drive is now partitioned and the only way to return it to normal will be to erase the hard drive and start over. Am I right? Are there other options? At the moment we have Tiger installed (Pad Inc. told me to tell you). Thank you for your help in advance.
Mr. Pad Inc's Dad.

You may have to boot the computer from the
Installer disc so you can use Disk Utility and
see if the hard disk drive itself is actually the
item partitioned, or if there is a Disk Image in
the computer somewhere that is not an actual
'partition' and if so, it could be 'ejected.'
Does the computer in question have Leopard
on board? That MAY give a user, with Admin
level access, the ability to partition even a
PowerPC's hard drive; I believe the new Intel
Macs have that ability in their OS & hardware.
I have not heard of this issue in a PPC Mac
running Tiger 10.4.11 or earlier.
Perhaps you may not need to start from the
Installer boot disc to do this; maybe just look
in the system's own Disk Utility and see if a
second drive icon is present, (should be, if
you see it on the desktop) and then use D.U.
to tell what the content is and the size.
In fact, just highlight the icon on the desktop
and use 'Get Info' in the Finder's File menu to
see what you can, about this item.
Unlikely, someone could make a partition on
a PowerPC Mac without some third party tools.
The newer Intel® Macs can be partitioned with
no trouble; and the newer Drive Genius utility
can also partition without wiping or reinstalling.
If the appearance of an icon of a second drive
is simply due to someone having made a Disk
Image (or a .dmg file is also possible) you could
see what size the file is, and where it really is
located. When it is proven to not be essential
bits in a new wrapper, you can restart the Mac
in SafeBoot, repair disk permissions from the
Disk Utility in the computer's system, and then
restart normally. This would unmount the image
and also if it had been placed in the trash and
unable to be thrown away, this should unlock it.
But, I may be wrong about this; I'd certainly look
into it and would probably not have asked for help
in a forum; that's just me. I also have computer
clones on external bootable drives, too. Backups.
See what you can find out about the nature of the
file or disk image and when it was made; all that
would be in Get Info. And Disk Utility may have
been used to create it; anyone with access to a
Mac can do this. Perhaps you need to make a
different set of user accounts and leave the Mac
with a simple one for non-Admin persons to use?
Good luck & happy computing!
edited for some of the same reasons.

Back Up Hard Drive on desktop?

I had my hard drive replaced about a year ago and the people that did it created a "Back Up OS" on my desktop. It has the icon of a hard drive, but it only has about 17 GB left on it. My hard drive has about 76 GB free, so I know it doesn't have everything automatically uploaded onto it that my hard drive has - I'm not sure what this is. I was curious if anyone ever had anything like this created on their desktop and whether it is necessary. I have an external hard drive where I store large files, is this just another form of a back-up hard drive or is this useless and should be deleted? Thank you!

Hi, txmacgirl. If both the Back Up OS disk and the other disk show the same amount of available space, then Back Up OS is not a separate disk: it's a disk image, i.e. a package of data stored on your one and only hard drive in a format that enables it to look and behave like a separate drive. It's probably an image, or replica, of your previous hard drive (now gone) and all of its contents. If that's the case, Back Up OS contains all the data that you had stored on your old hard drive before it was replaced. The technician who replaced your drive undoubtedly imaged the old drive in case anything went wrong while s/he was transferring your data to the new one, and then copied the image onto the new drive so you would have it if you needed it later.
There are at least two important things to know about the Back Up Os disk image if I've correctly guessed its nature:
1) It takes up the same amount of space on your new drive as was occupied by everything that you had on the old drive. So if, for example, 20GB of space was used on the old drive, the disk image of that drive is using 20GB of space on your new drive.
2) As long as the image is stored only on the new drive and nowhere else, it will be lost along with the more recent contents of the new drive if the new drive ever fails. It won't be a useful backup unless it's copied to a different hard drive. And even if you do copy it to an external drive or a second internal drive for safekeeping, it won't be a complete backup, in that it doesn't contain any new material you've saved since the new drive was installed. It's only a snapshot of the old drive at the time of its replacement.
The technician may also have copied all the contents of the Users folder on the old drive into the new Users folder on the new drive to give you access to all your old files without any extra steps or complications. If you can readily find and use all the old files you expect to be able to find and use without going into the Back Up OS "disk", and if everything else seems to be working fine for you, then there's probably no reason to keep the Back Up OS image. Disposing of it is a three-step process:
a. Select the Back Up OS "disk" and Eject it. It will disappear from the desktop, but it isn't actually gone yet.
b. Find the file on your hard drive called "Back Up OS.dmg" and drag it to the Trash. (Use the Finder's "Find" command if the file isn't right out in plain view.)
c. Empty the Trash. You should now have quite a bit more available space on your new hard drive, and the Back Up OS disk will no longer appear on your desktop at startup.

Drivers for format hard drive of desktop imedia A3523 made in year 2010

Can you please help
I need to down load drivers then burning to disks to reload a formated hard drive, o/s windows 8
( to clean hard drive, load drivers, then re-instll windows 8)
Thank you.
t.j.

As the imedia A3523 circa 2010 originally shipped with WIN7, you have an issue. Do you possess a retail WIN8 or upgrade WIN8?
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Networking with an Xbox 360: Getting the Xbox hard drive on desktop?

Last Xmas my family became the owner of an Xbox 360. The Xbox is successfully hooked into my Airport network for online gaming.
Saved games are stored on the Xbox's hard drive. I'm wondering if anyone has ideas about how I can "backup" the content on the Xbox's hard drive to my Mac's hard drive. I think that would entail "mounting" the Xbox's hard drive in my OS X environment over the Airport network.
I know networking with Windows computers is possible, but the Xbox?
Thanks for any ideas.

Thanks for the reply.
I've tried Connect to Server and entered smb:// and the IP of the XBox, but received an error: The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "smb://10.0.1.3" could not be read or written. (Error cose -36)."
So far, no dice. Any other ideas?

Can't See Files in Folder Copied from External Hard Drive to Desktop

I recently purchased a Jobo Spectator (portable image tank for storing photos). When I connect it (USB) to my iMac I see it and can copy files to my desktop. If I copy an entire folder from the device to my desktop, Finder tells me it contains 0 files and I can't see any files in it. However, if I try to recopy one of the copied files from the Jobo to the folder, Finder tells me the file already exists there and asks if I want to replace it. If I then cancel the copy, all of my copied files show up in the folder. This behavior seems to be consistent. There is no Mac driver for the device. It doesn't look like I'm going to lose any files from this behavior but I find it frustrating.
Does anyone have a clue? Thanks.

A warm welcome to the forums Sue!
The Finder is a bit lackadaisical about updating itself, you can click back & forth enough times, closing folders, opening folders and eventually it'll be in touch, or you can try something like "A Better Finder Attributes", for it's "force the Finder to update stale information about your files" feature.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18736
Possibly this would help too, but haven't tried it...
http://www.finderpop.com/

Change Look of Hard Drive on Desktop

I bought a second G4 Mac (QuickSilver 2002) on ebay. How do I change the look of the Desktop when I double-click on "WD1200 Boot Drive" (see picture) to the look of "Mac Companion" (see picture) when I double-click on "WD1200 Boot Drive?"

Niel, I can't get to the bottom right of the window mentioned above to re-size the window. What should I do?
Enclosed please find screen picture.

Missing Hard Drive on Desktop...

Hi,
I was asked to come and take a look at a friends computer, a Mac Mini, which has OS-X (10.4.6) installed and seems to be experiencing a few problems.
Here is a link to the original post that I am seeking solution(s) too.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=495748&tstart=0
Any advise or direction would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Jon

Jon, did you try all instructions that were given in the last post of the thread you indicated?

External hard drive icon won't appear on desktop

Apparently spontaneously (has worked fine in the past!) I cannot get a desktop icon for my La Cie external hard drive to appear. I can see the hard drive in Desktop Utility and can eject it through there but the verify and repair options aren't highlighted.

I hear it spinning- I think?
That may not be so good because it suggests the power is getting to it and it is something else more critical to the functioning of the drive that is wrong. If it is the enclosure you could try moving it out of the enclosure into a different one, or into the computer.
I just used Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory- no luck.
Ah, so did Diskwarrior see the drive? I didn't think you could see the drive in Disk Utility.
I also replaced the firewire Cable- no luck.
Good try but the flashing blue light suggested something else to me.
I'm now doing to bring it to a local Computer Store to try to retrieve the information.
Try using an application such as [Data Rescue II|http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php] or [FileSalvage|http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1]. Both have free trial versions that let you see if the software will help before you decide to buy. You will also need a second hard drive equal to or larger in size than your first drive.
I wrote to Lacie- but they are so slow in responding- it will be days.
Ummmm....

Hard drive on desktop

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