No external disk icon on desktop

I can not see my WD My Book when it is connected directly to my MBP 15 10.5.1. I get no icon and it does not appear in finder. I do see it in disk utility. This just stopped working all of a sudden. How do I get the disk back??

Take a look at the article I wrote on invisible drives in Tiger:
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html
If you know the name of anything on the drive you can use Spotlight to go there: type the name, then Command click on the result in the Spotlight menu to open the folder. You can then use the Path toolbar as shown in the article to see if the drive has become invisible. If you are lucky the fixes in the article will solve the problem. However, in Leopard there have now been several cases where resetting the visible bit won't "stick"--it promptly gets changed back to invisible.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

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Am trying to transfer iTunes library to an external disk for back-up purposes. have followed normal protocol i.e. locating iTunes file in Music folder and dragging across to external disk icon. However, nothing seems to happen. Any advice please?

Am trying to transfer an iTunes library to an external disk for back up. Have followed normal instructions by locating iTunes folder in Music file and dragging across the iTunes folder to the external disk icon. Nothing happens. No notifications. Just a very pregnant pause. Any advice gratefully appreciated.
Michael L J

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
The external drive must be formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", exFAT or FAT32, because OS X can't write in NTFS partitions by default.
As you just want the library on the external drive to make a backup of your library, you can format it in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" by using Disk Utility > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html (Note that you won't be able to use the external drive with PCs unless you install a special application in them).
Finally, drag your iTunes folder to your external drive

Invisible Startup Disk Icon on Desktop and Finder

Today suddenly I found that my Startup disk icon was gone from the desktop and from the Finder. I did some searching and found the following solution that may be useful for someone else:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=4932292#post4932292
I pasted the solution below:
from a Terminal window, type:
ls -lOd /
(That's lowercase ell, lowercase ess, space, minus, lowercase ell, capital oh, lowercase dee, space, forward slash)
You should get something like this:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t 32 root admin - 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /
Sounds like you might see something like this instead:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t@ 32 root admin hidden 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /
(note it says "hidden" instead of "-")
To fix this, type:
sudo chflags nohidden /
and provide your admin password. You won't get any output back from the command but the icon should now appear on your desktop, and the hidden flag should go away if you repeat the 'ls -lOd /' command.
And just in case you missed it above, you've got to be sure Hard disks are turned on in Finder General Preferences under "Show these items on the Desktop"

A few days after trying the solution in my previous post, I realized that the Startup disk icon was still missing from Devices in the Finder's sidebar.
So, following some advice from other forums, I went and deleted com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist from homedirectory/library/preferences. Then did a control-option-click on Finder in the Dock and chose "relaunch".
So this completed the fix. Coincidentally this also fixed a "freeze" issue that I was having.

Hiding disk icons on Desktop

I have multiple hard disks on my Mac Pro desktop. Is there some way to hide some of the icons to free up desktop space?
Thanks.

In Finder's menubar, Finder > Preferences > General tab > Uncheck HDs

Hard disk icon on desktop not right

Hello,
When I logged into my imac today the icon on my desktop for the hard disk doesn't say "hard disk" underneath it anymore. Instead it says /'/:;'/'/l\\] If I go into Finder and Go the list of places I can go has the same thing there too. I restarted the computer and it's still there and I don't know why it's like that or how to fix it. thank you for any help anyone can give me.
Niki

Follow Niels advice however after you press Enter type in the name you would like it to have then press Enter again.

Red Nano icons on desktop and in iTunes 7

I got a product Red 8GB nano for christmas and notice that when I plug it into my mac the icons OS X is using for it are not what I'd expect. For instance, on the desktop instead of the icon being an ipod its the same icon OS X uses for a disk image (such as a dmg).
Further, in iTunes 7 it shows its icon as a shopping cart! What is up with that? Are these too new for proper icons? My gen 1 nano had proper icons. Also this ipod is having that error code -48 error. Does that error cause this icon issue as well?
My question is: Are the icons supposed to be like that? If so, why. If not, what's the issue and can I remedy it?
Thanks,
Nick

Thanks for the quick reply. I have turned the enable option on and off during my attempts to get it to not give me the -48 error code when starting itunes.
When I plug mine in, on the desktop and in finder it appears as an image instead of an ipod. I could see it using an external disk icon, however it's not. And in iTunes it shows the iPod as a shopping cart! I've restored it at least 3 times and the software says that it's up to date.
Anyhow, I figured the icons should be showing up. Since yours seems to be working properly, may I ask if you're having this error code -48 issue? I wonder if they have anything in common.

How can I get my LaCie external hard disk icon to reappear on my desktop?

The iMac discussion section does not seem open to me asking this question. It's geared to the Intel Macs or other categories which do not allow for me to type in the following question:
Bottom Line Question:
How can I get my La Cie external hard disk icon to re-appear on my desktop?
Background:
I clicked Go > Computer
At that point there the usual set of icons in the far left hand column, including one for my LaCie external hard disk. Near that icon there was a dark upturned truncated/shortened arrow. I absent-mindedly clicked on that dark arrow, and at that moment I could hear my LaCie external hard drive power down; I heard the sound of hardware powering down.
The LaCie external hard drive is sitting right next to my iMac and its blue light is ON so I know that at very least I didn't turn it off.
But where is it?
And how can I get it to reappear on my desktop?
Right now when I click onto Go > Computer, the LaCie external hard drive disk is NOT THERE.
Thank you.
Lorna in Southern California

James, yes. I put the question in the iMac section and did get some solutions. My LaCie external hard drive is back now. I was aware that the arrow is connected to Eject actions, but was concerned when I went to Finder Preferences and selected the LaCie to show up on the Desktop, and its icon did not show up on the desktop. I hope you and your family are enjoying the weekend, James. But how could you not: You have little Kate there with you. Lorna in Southern California

Why can't I place disk icons on my desktop?

Why can't I place disk icons on my desktop?
I installed OSX Lion, version 10.7.1 from the App Store onto the internal disk of my MacBookPro which was cloned to an external FW800 GoFlexDesk drive. I booted from that external drive, ran the disk utility to erase and then repartition my internal drive so that I would have a "clean" installation of Lion. My disk icon (for the internal drive) does not even show in Finder windows. In Snow Leopard I showed my internal drive, my Time Capsule drives, and any external drives on my desktop as icons. Now these do not even show in Finder. I know they are there, because if I choose the path view option, they are shown when I pick "All My Files" under favorites. I can navigate backwards in the path bar, but still they do not actually allow me to select them or drag them to the desktop. In Snow Leopard, it was an option to show disks on desktop in general system preferences, but I find that option no where in Lion! What simple little thing am I missing?

PilotShawn wrote:
What simple little thing am I missing?
Finder > Preferences > General > Show these items on the Desktop?

Just updated WD Drive Utilities - now all my WD external disks have vanished from desktop

I have just been using one of my 4TB My Book external disks on a MacBook AIR running 10.10.4All well and good. Only 1 installed at a time using the USB port. But the system told me there is a WD update so I installed it. Immediately after installing WD Drive Utilities and trying it out the WD disk on the desktop greyed out, then vanished completely. I pulled out the USB cable and put it back into the MacBook. The desktop icon for the WD drive reappeared, but greyed out, then vanished. So I thought it must be the new update so I uninstalled it using the WD Uninstall program. Same problem. I have an older (2014) WD Drive Utilities install-software on a MyPassport drive so I plugged in the USB for that drive, same problem, that is also greyed out and then vanishes from the desktop. So I tried the My Book again, using Disk Utilities in the MacBook. It sees the drive at first, but then it vanishes within 5 seconds. Disk Utilities says "Error: A disk with a mount point is required". I am very loathe to plug in my other 2 MyBook 3TB drives in case these also vanish or become unuseable for this same reason. I have a huge amount of data backed up on all of these disks. I think the disks are okay and maybe if I can get hold of older WD software from 2014 then I can backtrack and put it back the way it was. As a first step does anyone know where I can get hold of older WD software such as Drive Utilities (I think that was the one which did it). Or is there some files it has installed on the MacBook hidden away somewhere which I can delete?

July 2015 Solution for Multiple Problems with a New ‘My Passport for Mac’ (Note: I am posting this same message in response to several topics in this Forum, since the symptoms sounded similar to mine and I suspect WD software is causing them.) Like many other Users here, I recently bought a new external WD drive. The irony here is that I already own 3 other WD external drives, and they have been running fine for several years on our two Mac computers for photo and backup uses. Not so with this new drive. Following the WD installation steps, I first installed their software WD Drive Utilities and WD Security. And then my confusion started, because I now got the message ‘Error in RAID configuration’, even though I don’t use RAID and had done nothing except plug in the new drive. I ran the WD Drive Utility, Status Check, and my laptop actually crashed! I also saw the new drive mount at first, then spontaneously dismount after a minute or so. I even dismounted the new disk, mounted one of my older disks I have used for several years, and now it reported ‘Error in RAID configuration’, something it had never done before, and when I ran the WD Drive Utility, Status Check, on my older Passport drive my laptop again crashed. Like others here, I wasted a lot of time trying to resolve this, but let me skip all that and get right to what I did to get this new disk (and my old ones) to work correctly again. Solution which worked for me: I uninstalled the WD Drive Utilities software (the entire folder) completely. So far I have not uninstalled the WD Security software, although I have not dared to use it yet and likely never will. To uninstall WD Drive utilities, I used the free app AppCleaner from freemacsoft.net (NOT the app in the Mac App store similarly named App Cleaner; it may work just as well, but I have never used it.) Now that the WD Drive Utility is off my computer, I can use the new WD Passport and all my older Passport drives. I have run Apple’s Disk Utility, Verify, numerous times on the new drive, and using Carbon Copy Cloner I have cloned up to 340 GB to the new Passport drive, followed by Verifying it, without errors or any of the symptoms listed above. WD versions for me were: WD Drive Utilities 2.0.2.18, which folder contained WDDriveUtilityHelper 1.0.0.16. I hope this helps others on this Forum.

Desktop hard disk icon gone

After installing Yosemite update (10.10.2 (14C78c)), hard disk icon on the desktop has disappeared.
Of course, I checked "Hard disks" from finder preferences.
How can I make the icon visible?

Obviously the harddrive is still working
You may have a corrupted .plist file, but which one I don't know. Someone else might.
If you plug in an external drive does that Icon behave the same way? Or does it work normally?
If you right-click the icon when you see it and select "Get Info" and leave it up does it stay when the icon goes away?
Is the name Macintosh HD?
Try changing the color of the icon - see if that does anything.
Lastly, create another user with limited power and see what happens to the harddrive under that other user.

Can't get external hard disk icons to appear on iMac desk top

Hi guys,
I hope someone can help me. I have OS X Lion on my iMac. I noticed that a few days after installing it, my external hard disk icons and Macintosh HD icons disappeared from the desktop. I tried going to Finder- Preferences- Show these items on desktop and checked the appropriate boxes but this only restored the Macintosh HD icon to the desktop. Checking the "External disks" box makes no difference. When I open Finder I can see the external hard disks in the sidebar so I don't think there is a problem with the disks. Can anyone advise me on how to restore the external hard disk icons to the desktop?
Thanks a million

I'm not sure why they're not showing but try doing a couple of troubleshooting steps. Restart the machine in the Restore Partition, when you hear the startup tone hold down the Option key and choose the Restore Partition. Then open Disk Utilities and Repair Disk Permisssions on your internal HD at least 2x, while you are in DU it wouldnt hurt to run Repair Disk, again 2x. Then restart the computer in Safe Mode to clear some caches and finally restart normally and check.

Erasrd Zip Disk 250 IOMEGA Zip Disk icon dissappeared from desktop

I was experimenting for the purpose of learning how to erase a Zip Disk. It’s not necessary because you can simple remove existing folders from a Zip Disk and put new one on. This was sort of a controlled experiment.
This Zip Disk was a back up Zip Disk (removable media). So I made copies of the existing folders and put them in a safe place. So I did not lose data. I made backups for Folders on my Zip Disk and then deliberately erased the data on the Zip Disk itself.
I have an External IOMEGA 250 Zip Drive and I was using an IOMEGA 250 Zip Disk.
I went to (Mac Help) to get instructions on how to erase a disk or volume.
I opened Disk Utility I was instructed to select a Disk Volume or Image on the Left side of the window. On the left there was my
External Hard Drive IOMEGA icon 239.0 MB and under It was the classic (White) IOMEGA Zip Disk Icon 250MB.
I believe I selected my:
External Zip Hard Drive Icon 239.0MB IOMEGA ZIP 250.
Then in the dialog box to the Right I selected the (Erase) button. In the Erase dialog box I entered the following information:
Volume Format: I Selected Mac OS Extended (Journal)
Name: Zip 250
Check Box: Install Mac OS.9 Disk Driver
Regarding this (check box)
Mac Help Stated this:
If you plan to start up the disk in Mac OS 9 or if the disk will be connected to computer running OS 9 then check this box.
So I checked this box
Options Button: I checked (Zero All Data)
Erase Button: I hit erase
The erase procedure was not completed.
So I went back into the Erase dialog box this time I did not select anything from the
(Options Menu) Options were now listed as none.
I hit erase again and this time the erase was completed.
And upon completion I noticed that the (White) Zip 250 icon on my Desktop disappeared. I don't think that was supposed to happen.
I did notice that the External Zip Hard Drive was still listed in the Right Panel of my Disk Utility but the (White) Zip Disk250 icon had changed it now was listed as:
Disk1s9
But the Zip Disk Icon itself was not showing on my desktop
So apparently I did not execute this erase experiment correctly!
For learning purposes I would like to receive instructions on how to get the (White) Zip 250 icon to mount so I can re-use this Zip Disk. And In the process learn the right way to do something like this. And to understand what is actually taking place.
Let me save you some time, as you try to trouble-shoot what I have done, by telling you what action I have already taken to fix this.
I went back to my Disk Utility:
Selected the (First Aid) Button in an attempt to Verify and Repair Volumes:
I Verified the Volume it was OK
I also Repaired Volume and it said OK
I then ejected the Zip Disk from the Disk Utility and simply reinserted it again to see if the (White) Zip 250 Icon would now be displayed on my Desktop. But it did not.
I then ejected the Zip Disk and turned off my computer and turned it back on and tried again to mount my Zip Disk to my Desktop.
But to no avail
I then turned my computer off and upon restart I reset my Parameters
Zap the Pram, as they say and that did not work.
I then with the External IOMEGA 250 Zip Drive still plugged in to my USB Port; I again turned off my computer. While the computer was off I un-plugged the External IOMEGA 250 Zip Drive from the USB port and then plugged it back in, and turned my computer back on. I put my Zip Disk into my Zip Drive but it still did not mount the (Whit) Zip Disk Icon on my desktop.
Each time I ejected the Zip Disk and reinserted it a Message would display:
You have installed a Disk containing no volumes that Mac OSX can read to continue with the Disk inserted click (ignore) from following buttons"
(Initialize) (Ignore) (Eject)
Initialize simply opened Disk Utility.
So I then clicked (Ignore) and proceeded back to Disk Utility to mount a new image even though I did not need to retrieve any loss data. I thought what the heck, I will try it, may be I can get my (White) Zip 250 icon back on my desktop in the process.
So with Disk Utility opened from the above Main Menu I selected:
Image:
New:
Image from disk1s9
Results I got an Error-39 Message?
With that I gave up and came to the Discussion Board to find out what I actually did wrong and how to repair it, and learn the right way to do something like this.
I am guessing that the new Zip Disk 1s9 listed in the Disk Utility is a major clue. I am assuming it is in reference to OS 9.2.2, I did check that box during the erasing procedure to install Mac OS 9 Disk Driver?
I hope I have not done any damage to my OS9 Operating System or caused OS 9 to malfunction in some way.
I have not gone into OS 9.2.2 yet to check for any malfunctions.
Also I thought I would mention this External Zip Driver is about 4 years old, so far it has worked well on both OS9.2.2 and OSX 10.3.9
So, I think what I have done is pretty straightforward and I hope the solution is simple and straightforward.
I would like some help with this so I can learn more and understand what I did and how to repair things.
Worse case scenario I can just buy another blank Zip Disk

Beverly:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
You apparently erased the formatted volume on your zip disk, so that Mac OS does not see it as a Mac disk.
Launch Disk Utility and select your zip disk (manufacturer ID) in left panel. Select Partition in the main panel. Name your Volume in the Name field. Select Volume Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You are about to create a Mac formatted volume on a single partition of your zip disk. Click Partition.
Let me know if this works for you.
Good luck.
cornelius

Have a macbook pro running osx lion, connected a kindle fire using micro usb to transfer pictures and the disk icon won't show up on the desktop. When I ran disk utilities the kindle does show up there. Any thoughts as to why it's not recognizing?

Have a macbook pro running osx lion. Connected a Kindle Fire using micro usb and the disk icon doesn't show up on the desktop. Also sometimes get a message sayiing computer doesn't recognize device. When I opened disk utilities the Kindle disk does show up there. What am I missing?

cashworth wrote:
Kindle is connected directly, not thru a hub. Also called Amazon Kindle support, tech was baffled when I told her I was using a Mac. She said, "I'm not really familiar with apple products."
Precisely why it's not an iPad, and why it doesn't cost very much. An Apple rep would tell you how to connect an iPad to every computer.
Go here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=sv_kinh_9?ie=UTF8&nodeId =200127470

External drive icon not appearing on desktop

Hi - I have also posted this in the Time Machine forum as this is where my problem started. New iMac yesterday - replacement for faulty iMac which I had backed up using Time Machine. Reinstall from Time Machine effortless - no problem. Downloaded available software updates and 10.5.7 onto new iMac. No problem until I go to do another backup. Time Machine does not recognise external drive and I get "volume could not be found" message. At this point in time the external drive icon is showing on the desktop. Give up and go to bed thinking I will reformat external drive in the morning and start again
This morning, I boot up the machine but the external drive icon has disappeared from the desktop. Unplug external HD from usb and plug in again. No icon on desktop although it shows in Finder and Time Machine.
Anyway - I turned Time Machine off and then pointed it at the Ext. HD - went to back up now and magic - did complete backup and has done a second subsequently. Seems to have created a second backup folder separate from the one created by previous machine from which I reinstalled. Still no desktop icon! Switch iMac off and on again - still no desktop icon. So why - the Ext. drive is recognised and works so why isn't an icon for it appearing on the desktop?
Please help - I need answers to these weird happenings
Thanks
Ann
.

Problem solved and it was so simple - just had to go to Finder, Preferences, General and tick the box that says external devices. Desktop icon has returned:-) Don't know why it became unticked but everything now is working absolutely fine (as far as I know lol) Hope this is the start of a good relationship between me and my new Mac!
Ann

HT1338 When I insert a disk, a disk icon does not appear on my desktop, nothing happens and there is no option to eject. I have to restart in order to eject the disk. Any ideas on how to fix this problem?

When I insert a disk, a disk icon does not appear on my desktop, nothing happens and there is no option to eject. I have to restart in order to eject the disk. Any ideas on how to fix this problem?

No external disk icon on desktop

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