Startup Disk Icon in Preferences Changed..change back?

For some reason, the icon for Startup Disk in the System Preferences changed on me, and I am unsure of how to change it back. I have already tried repairing permissions with no sucess. If someone could let me know how to change it back and (if i need it) send me the icon or point me to where the original icon would be. Thanks in advance.
Here is a picture of the current icon: /___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png
<html>
MacBook 1.83 GHz, 1 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7) HP zv5000 P4 2.8 Ghz (128 ATI 9000, 512 mb, XP); PowerMac G4 400 AGP 1 GB OSX 10.3.9

hi - Welcome to Apple Discussions!
try this:
Open your hard drive > Library > Caches folder in the finder...
Drag the file named com.apple.preferencepanes.cache to your Desktop...
look at System Preferences again - is it o.k.?
if so, trash that prefpanes cache file on your desktop...
if not, post back...
cheers

Similar Messages

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.

Cannon find Startup Disk icon

Well I found the Startup Disk icon okay but now I rebooted and cannot find it.
I looked in the control panel under "Performance and Maintenance" in the category view. And also in the Classic View it has disapeared as well.
What cna I do about this? I cannot figure out how to boot back into OSX?
cheers,
Noah

Supposedly... holding the "x" key down when booting defaults to booting OSXS... never tried it... since I need a "9" key! LOL:-)

Corrupt "Startup Disk" icon in System Prefs

Wish I could post a pic, but I can't. The icon for the Startup Disk in my System Preferences is all messed up. It's way too wide, looks like a light switch with a circle or something down in the corner, and the title isn't even there.
Old skool: rebuild the desktop.
New millennium:...?
Thanks for any suggestions! (All software updates installed.)

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions ...
It could be that your System Preferences are corrupted. It happens... Try this. Locate this file;
com.apple.systempreferences.plist It's here: /Home/Library/Preferences. Open the Preferences folder, locate that file, drag it to the Trash, empty the Trash and reboot. Go to your System Preferences/Startup Disk pane and see if the icon is behaving.
Also, if you haven't already done so, create a new user: System Preferences/Accounts and see if the System Preferences/Startup Disk icon looks like it should in that account. The reason for doing this is to see if the problem is system wide or just your Home Folder.
Also, can't hurt to run Disk Utility. It's in your Applications/Utility folder. Repair Disk Permissions and see if that makes a difference.
Hope something helps!
Carolyn

Question mark on startup disk icon

I installed Mavericks yesterday and there is now a question mark on the startup disk icon inside System Preferences. I rebooted the machine but its still there.
Any help?
Thanks.

Question (?) Mark, Blinking Folder, or Gray Screen at Startup
These are related but not identical issues. Their causes are outlined in Intel-based Mac- Startup sequence and error codes, symbols. Solutions may be found in:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Mac OS X- Gray screen appears during startup
In most cases the problems may be caused by:
Problem with the computer's PRAM - See Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
Boot drive's directory has been corrupted - Repair with Disk Utility.
Critical system files are damaged or deleted - Reinstall OS X.
The disk drive is physically non-functional - Replace the hard drive.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
The main difference if you are using Lion or Mountain Lion is that you must first boot from the Recovery HD:
Boot From The Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Reinstall Snow Leopard Without Erasing The drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing The Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Can't unlock startup disk in system preferences

I installed Tiger and the startup disk on system preferences is locked so I can't boot into OS9. When I type in my name and password, I get a message saying "type in user name and password." I can log into OSX OK at startup with the same name and password. There are no other users of this computer.
Any ideas?

Hi, Dark-Sabre -
Apple KBase Article HT2176 sets out the requirements for OSX 10.3 (and gives links to articles showing the requirements for later versions of OSX). Included is the need for the machine to have at least 128MB of RAM. Doubling that amount is a more realistic minimum.
As Grant has suggested, be sure the firmware has been updated on the machine. On many model iMacs, early ones in particular, the machine may suffer loss of video if the machine is booted to OSX prior to updating the firmware.

Question mark on startup disk in System Preferences

There is question mark sign on startup disk in System Preferences on Mavericks of Macbook air 13inch (Early 2014). I can't find any solution for this. Could someone please help me find the solution. I know that something went wrong and I don't know how to fix it.

I think I now understand your concern. This is from my MBP System preferences display:
Click on it and should show what startup disk option(s) you have. This is normal.
Ciao.

Lost icon for Startup Disk in System Preferences panel

Last week i noticed that the icon for my Startup Disk doesn't display correctly in the System Preferences panel.
I've uploaded a screenshot of my System Preferences here:
http://www.solidgold.fi/img/systemprefs.jpg
You'll see the messed up icon between Speech and Universal Access.
Any ideas what can be causing this?
Thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Pablo
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2 GHz

You're most welcome. Glad to help!
PS: You may want to mark my earlier post above as Solved as it solved your problem and may help others with the same problem that find your topic know the post that contains the answer. Click the Solved button in that post above.
Marking posts that are helpful or solve the problem as Helpful or Solved, respectively, aids others in finding answers and awards points to those who take the time to respond. See "Why reward points?".
Marking a topic as Answered indicates the question is resolved, but only you, as the person who asked the question, can mark posts as Helpful or Solved. The "Answered" status neither awards points nor provides an indication to others of the posts that were either helpful or solved the problem.
Additionally, the new "Yes/No" buttons do not assign any points: they merely collect statistics for Apple, a very confusing change recently made to the Discussions.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

Startup disk almost full--how to change the defualt free space amount?

I know that not too long ago I was able to change the default value that OSX uses to determine if the startup disk is almost full (5 GB?). For the life of me, I can't remember how I did that. I do know that it was a simple process--no terminal, no Unix, just a simple dialog box somewhere.
Can anyone remind me how to make this adjustment?

There is no such parameter built-in to OS X. You must have been using some third-party disk monitoring utility.

Startup Disks missing from Preference Pane - Help!

I have my Macbook partitioned with boot camp and I can start up in both Windows or OSX by holding down the option key and I get to choose my system.
However, in my preference pane for Startup disk, they only option that appears is Network Startup. Neither OSX or Windows appears there. This has only occurred since the last update. I haven't changed anything in my system in months.
So I now have to wait for an extra 2 min or so, while the macbook searches the network for a bootable drive before it finally decides to start in OSX.
Anyone have any ideas how to get my drives back in the Startup Disk preference pane?
Any help you can provide would be welcome.
Thanks.

Oh, I wish that had worked, but unfortunately they do not appear with any other user either.
I really don't want to do a complete reinstall of both systems. I hope I can figure out another way to fix this.
Message was edited by: Chris Echlin

No startup disks in System Preferences

...only "Network startup" shows.
I was trying to install a firmware update via OS9 (or so I hoped) onto my pismo so that I could use migration assistant for my new mbp. I had a fw drive attached, with 4 partitions, along with the pismo's hd and its 2 partitions. From the fw drive, I selected an os9.2 system folder to boot from, and the pismo booted up into 9.2 as expected; after restart, the pismo came up in panther however, rather than os9.2. Only after starting up Classic from the fw drive did I get the message the update failed. Next, I copied over the system folder with os9.2 onto the pismo. please note, the os9.2 folder is from a backup of my wife's g4 iBook. When I opened system prefs hoping to select the just-copied system folder as the start up disk - I got nothing, just network startup. No other folders. I just ran applejack to repair permissions, but afterward, still nothing in startup disk.
What did I do, and how can I fix it? Any help appreciated.

Alright - I've run Disk Utility and repaired permissions and now Sys Prefs has found all the volumes on my drive.
At first nothing had changed when I looked in Sys Prefs, and I highlighted the Network icon assuming I could deselect it. I could not. I triple clicked in the space next to the Network icon, and sys prefs seemed to wake up and immediately scanned. I selected the volume I wanted, and closed the lock to prevent changes. I had not clicked in the space before running Disk Utility, so perhaps clicking was all I needed to do, but since the log from DU suggests permissions were repaired, I suspect it was necessary.
Here's the log from Disk Utility. If someone can translate this for me to let me know what was done, I'd be grateful. I assume the glitch was in the system library filesystems line:
Repairing permissions for “Steve's Computer”
Determining correct file permissions.
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays. New permissions are 16893
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/ColorSync/Profiles. New permissions are 16893
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/Filesystems/cd9660.fs/cd9660.util. New permissions are 33261
We are using a special uid for the file or directory ./private/var/at/jobs. New uid is 1
We are using a special uid for the file or directory ./private/var/at/spool. New uid is 1
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume
Permissions repair complete

What happened to the Startup Disk icon?

I've only had my MacBook Pro for about two weeks (and already seem to have screwed things up). The last couple of day I've notices that my System Preferences > Startup Disk has gone from the harddrive icon to this icon:
http://symtym.com/rsc/startupdisk.jpg
Any suggestions as what caused this and what to do to fix it? TIA
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4)

A lot of people have had this strange light switch icon replace normal ones. See this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2819841&#2819841
Removing the preference files recommended by Ferd seems to fix it.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Startup Disk Quits System Preferences??

I have just installed Jaguar and updated to 10.2.8 on a recently acquired machine. Everything else seems to work well, including other System Preferences but, when I click Startup Disk, it starts to load and then I get a message that "The application System Preferences has unexpectedly quit."
Is there some way to fix this other than reinstalling the system? I have run First Aid and Repair Permissions - First Aid says OK??

Hi Gene:
I was having a similar problem, except it was the System Preferences on an iMac running 10.3.9: check it out here for a summary of the troubleshooting I went through.
I think it's a logic board issue, but I've been wrong before.
Good luck!
Andrew

Startup Disk (under System Preferences) does not show os X or Windows disks

My startup disk options are not detected on Startup Disk. I can boot ok using either OS X 10.5.5 or Windows Vista if I startup holding the option key. Each system is stored on a separate drive on my Mac Pro. All drives appear to be fine.
The only things I have done recently have been setting up my wife as a new user including a new email account, and also plugging in my new logitech Vision Pro. Nothing too dangerous there I would have thought.
Any ideas about what is wrong and how to fix? I have reset P RAM, have repaired permissions. I hope to avoid a full reinstall of OS X. Apple support line has no record of startup disks not being visible occuring before.

If you do not chose which system to boot to by holding the option key, will it automatically boot to OS X?
Are there no options at all in the Startup Disk utility? If the issue is that you'd like to be able to chose which system to boot to, then I've found the software package rEFIt useful (http://refit.sourceforge.net/). Whenever you power on/restart your Mac, it displays a nice looking menu with little pictures representing the different boot options (it will have a picture for OS X, one for Windows, any other OSes you may install, and also will list any bootable removable media).

No Startup Disk Icons in System Preferences

I've been combing the discussion forums several days and haven't had any success: I'm running OS X 10.2.8 on a 800 MHZ PowerPC G4. My problem is the when I attempt to open the system prefernces folder start up disk preference pane it doesnt display either of the 2 40 Gig hard drives that I have installed and I have force quit System Preferences. Then I have to do a manual re-boot.
I've tried to trash the system preferences cache temporarily and restart and I downloaded the shareware "Pacifist' and extracted the old StartUp PreferencePane folder and installed a new one and the issue is sitll there.
I would rather not create a seperate partition and re-install the old operating system or do a clean install, especially since I'm motivated to upgrade to Tiger OS. If I did upgrade, would it trash any potential corrupted files?? I'm hoping that would be an easy solution. Any ideas or feedback would be greatly appreciated at this point. Thanks!

petra:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
The first think I would try is:
Repair Disk
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key.
Go to Installer menu and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
If DU reports errors it cannot repair you will need to use a utility like Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior
Then:
Repair Disk Permissions
While booted from the internal HDD:
Go to (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left column and First Aid in main column.
Click Repair Disk Permissions at bottom left.
Take a look at Dr. Smoke's FAQ Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption.
If I did upgrade, would it trash any potential corrupted files??
If you decide to re-install, or upgrade to Tiger, I suggest that you wipe the disk then install Tiger. That should definitely take care of things.
Please, do post back and let me know if anything worked, or with further questions or comments.
Good luck.
cornelius

Startup Disk Icon in Preferences Changed..change back?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for