Startup drive icon disappeared, MacOS X 10.4.3

I have lost the internal hard drive icon on my PowerBook G4 1.5Mhz 15" with MacOS 10.4.3, 1.125 GB RAM. The disk suddenly went off the desktop and also the sidebar together with a few other problems at the time, leading to a Finder crash and restart. I had been working in Photoshop CS and Acrobat Professional 6.
Now the drive shows up in Spotlight, and I access the main level of the drive if I open it from there. It also shows up in Disk Utility, and running disk verify shows no error. Same with Applejack and Yasu. I have tried Disk Utility from the disk and also from Tiger install CD. The disk functions normally in all other respects, except it refuses to mount an image to the desktop or to the sidebar. Changing Finder preferences does not help. Other disks mount, through FireWire and USB (iPod shuffle), and the Finder preferences for having them show up or hide also works.
When I get the drive to show through Spotlight, so that I have a Finder window with the icon showing, the icon is grey. I have tried dragging it back into the sidebar, but it just pops right out again, without showing -- a little nudge in the bar, that’s all.
I have also made it appear by doing a show hidden files command. That brings it to show on the desktop, but then it disappears again when I turn that function off. So it looks like the main drive mysteriously has been set to be hidden from view.
I use FileVault, but can’t think of any connection. The drive also does not show up under other accounts on the same machine.
There is one other symtom which disturbs me. It seems the drive has filled up 2-3 GB more since before this happened. I had it steady around 21 GB free, and now it is down towards 18, with no reason in terms of intended new files. It this is some kind of cache or swap files, they have not been cleaned by Applejack Deep Clean procedure, which is one of the procedures I have run.
...And, I have tried the com.apple.finder.plist delete trick. No effect, except having to restore the other little things that were lost. Doesn’t make sense that it would work in my case, as reported in other cases, because the drive icon is gone in all login spaces on the machine, not just the one I was using when it happened.
I have also checked that the name has not inadvertently been changed to have a dot in front, to make it invisible.
PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.3)   PowerBook G4 15", 1.5Ghz, 1.125GB RAM, 80 GB internal drive

There have been several cases over the last few months of drives changing their attribute to invisible. See this thread. If you have Developer Tools installed you can check the status with the GetFileInfo command, which would look like this:
Tiger:~ francine$ GetFileInfo /
directory: "/"
attributes: avbstClinmed
created: 05/03/2005 16:54:33
modified: 12/27/2005 09:47:29
If the second letter is a capital V rather than the lower case v, then the drive is invisible. As mentioned in the above thread, you can use the SetFile command or FileBuddy to fix it.
Francine
Schwieder

Similar Messages

  • Where is startup drive Icon?

    I had to erase my start up drive in my macbook pro and reinstall Show Leopard, but upon turning on the computer my start up hard drive icon does not show on the desk top. How do I get it to show.

    robphoton2 wrote:
    I had to erase my start up drive in my macbook pro and reinstall Show Leopard, but upon turning on the computer my start up hard drive icon does not show on the desk top. How do I get it to show.
    Assuming you mean that after login to a user account you don't see the startup volume on the Desktop, check Finder preferences > General & make sure that "Hard disk" is checked in the list of items to show on the desktop.

  • HD Drive Icon disappeared

    Hi All,
    I got a new MacBook 2 days ago.
    I was attempting adjust the desktop icons to that of my previous macbook.
    I dragged and dropped the HD Drive icon from the finder window to my desktop and it disappeared completely. Does anyone have any idea where it has gone and how I can get it back? Also, what affect will this have?
    Any response is greatly appreciated
    Many thanks

    In the menu bar for Finder:
    Preferences-->"Show these items on the desktop"
    Check "Hard disks"
    See if that fixes it for you.

  • A new problem , the dvd driver icon disappeared in the computer

    i have a thinkpad T410, 64bit family premium .  when i double click computer. i can't find the dvd driver icon. and this driver doesn't work as well. what is wrong whith that ?

    Eject the DVD drive and put it back in- make sure it locks into place.
    What happens?

  • External Hard Drive Icon Disappeared/No access

    Hi-
    I have a Fantom Firewire External HD. I've owned it for almost 3 years. The other day I started my computer and the icon had disappeared and I can no longer access it in OS X. The drive still shows in Disc Utility, but I can't mount it/disc repair/anything. If I reboot to OS9 it boots on there. I've tried Norton Disc Doctor, but it says the computer does not recognize the drive and do I want to initialize, which I don't! Any suggestions on getting it back to OS X?
    Thanks..

    Hi Mark, just curious about Norton Disk Doctor and found this about it ..
    "Symantec has posted a note saying that the only Norton product compatible with Mac OS 10.4.X (Tiger) is Norton Antivirus 10.0 for the Macintosh. Do not use other Norton products because the results will be at best partially successful and may in fact cause damage to your computer."
    I haven't used anything by Norton, so I don't know what damage that would be, however, try removing the program and then Disk Repair afterwards.
    Further to the hard disk not being mounted, are you able to try another Mac OS X computer to see if it mounts on that? If so, try re-setting PRAM - (pressing Command-Option-P-R together on starting up and listen for two start-up bongs, then release).
    This will, amongst other things, will re-set all connection buses for firewire and USB ports.
    Best wishes,
    Robert.
    Message was edited by: Bob'syourUncle

  • 10.4.10 System Hard Drive Icon Disappeared

    Can't find my system partition in the finder. All other mounted hard drives and partitions show up in my "Computer" sidebar except the one with the system on it. If i set the finder to show all drives on the desktop, the drive with my system on it doesn't show up either. I can find the system in spotlight and get to it from there and I checked disk utility and it shows up there. Tried reboot, log off then on, permissions repair but none seem to work. Did a verify disk too and disk utiltiy says it's OK. Everything seems to be working normally, I just can't get an icon for the drive that my system is on.

    Sounds like the Invisiblilty bug strikes again. See the article I wrote on the problem:
    http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html
    The Applescript should fix it up.
    Francine
    Francine
    Schwieder

  • Hard Drive Icon Disappeared

    My hard drive dissappeared a couple of months ago. I have been starting and using it with an external hard drive. Does this mean that the hard drive is shot? What about getting a new hard drive installed...is it hard to do? Anyone have any suggestions on getting this repaired!
    Thanks
    John
    imac-ibook-ipod   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

    Tom, Thanks for your suggestion!
    When I used Disk Repair Utilitie it found the Hard Drive, but then when I tryed to repair it, the following is the results:
    Checking HFS Plus Volume
    Checking Extents Overflow File
    Checking Catalog File
    (in Red) Keys Out of Order
    (in Green) Rebuilding Catalog B-Tree
    Then, after a couple of minutes
    (In Red) The volume could not be repaired
    (In Red) ERROR: The underlying task reported failure on exit.
    Any ideas?
    Thanks
    John

  • Icons disappearing!

    Over the past few weeks, I've had all of the icons on my desktop (except hard drive icons) disappear several times. At that point all of the folders in my Apple menu (like "Applications") show up as "Empty Folder" when I click on them.
    Restarting fixes the problem, but that's a pain and it's very scary. Anyone know what's going on here?
    Thanks.

    I have the same problem with icons on the desktop and also icons for files and programs disappearing. They do not reappear on restart. I did try resetting the launcher as suggested in one of the discussions but it didn't work for me. Here is the website address. Hopefully it will work for you.
    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/resetlaunchservices.html
    iMac G5, G4 Powerbook    
    iMac G5, G4 Powerbook    

  • When it tries find the hard drive to startup the harddrive disappears

    I have tried booting it up from the startup disk and when it tries to find the harddrive to install on it takes a long time to find it then the icon disappears off the screen and I can't select anything

    Sounds like a dead HD.
    Is the "startup disk" (really the install disc) the one which shipped with the MBP? If so, run the Apple Hardware Test: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509

  • I have a FreeAgent Goflex drive (for Mac) after a while the icon disappears from the desktop and can only be restored by reconnecting

    I have a FreeAgent GoFlex backup drive (for Mac) after a while the icon disappears from the desktop and can only be restored by reconnecting the firewire. This also happens when I use the USB connection as well. Thanks

    Did you use any of the "sleep" drivers supplied? I have found it best to just totally reformat/erase the drives and let the OS handle them.

  • Pen drive icon doesn't disappear

    Hi there,
    I renamed a pen drive icon on desktop from "NO NAME" to another name by holding the mouse arrow on its name. Since then I cannot eject it.
    I removed the pen drive and the icon is still there. Getting its info I see in the icon image area the rotating star looking for something continuously.
    The icon is not listed in the finder.
    How can I remove it?

    Sorry, I wrote the last message in a bit of a rush.
    I had the same issue when I used MFE in that
    I'd receive an email - resulting in the new messages icon.
    I'd read the message on my remote system (and the read status would get synced to the phone), after which I could not get rid of the new message icon
    In order to get rid of the icon you need to read an unread message, so my work around was to mark any message as unread (using the phone), then immediately read it, which cleared the icon.
    It's been a while since I used MfE to I'm not sure what would happen if you also deleted the emails using outlook so that there were no messages at all in the inbox.

  • Hard Drive Icon (Macintosh HD) Disappeared - How do I get it back

    Hi,
    My Macintosh HD Icon that has been at the top right of my desktop forever is gone. Anyone know how to restore it? Getting to the hard drive now is a pain.
    Thanks.

    I am not sure how the OS puts the hard drive icon onto the desktop. But, one thing you could do is to peak inside the /Volumes directory to see what is listed there in regards to your hard drive. To do that, start the terminal app from the utilities folder. Then, copy and paste this command into the terminal window:
    ls -al /Volumes (followed by a return)
    Then, please copy and paste the results into another post.
    The results that I get are:
    drwxrwxrwt 4 root admin 136 Nov 24 19:32 .
    drwxrwxr-t 41 root admin 1496 Nov 15 18:50 ..
    -rw-rw-rw- 1 rich admin 6148 Nov 24 19:32 .DS_Store
    lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Nov 15 18:51 eMac Hard Drive -> /
    where eMac Hard Drive is the name for my hard drive. If your results do not look similar, perhaps there is a problem that can be fixed here.
    Rich
    EMAC G4 1.0 GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

  • Hard Drive icon missing - Desktop folders won't open - Need Help!

    I need help! I have a 400 MHz PowerPC G4 with 768 MB SDRAM, no DVD drive - was running OS X 10.3.9 quite happily. We became owners of a new iPod Nano - so we had to upgrade to 10.4.
    (I'm writing this on my 800 MHz PowerPC G4 with 768 MB SDRAM, (also no DVD drive) that I upgraded from OS X 10.3.9 to 10.4.11 without incident.)
    Installed 10.4 using a FireWire Hard Drive - installed software updates to 10.4.11 - ran Disk Utility - ran MacJanitor - ran DoktorKleaner - everything was working well.
    Rebooted and the Hard Drive Icon had disappeared from desktop. Folders on desktop have all lumped together in the top right hand corner of the screen, and refuse to open.
    Only programs in the dock still work - clicking on the Finder icon only gives the option to hide. New Finder Window does not work. Programs can be found in Spotlight, but if they're not in the dock they won't open. Trash won't open or empty.
    I attempted to reinstall Mac OS X using FireWire, but now the Hard Drive is full and is telling me it will erase and reinstall. I need to save files off this computer now (Sadly no backup exists) before my wife readies divorce papers.
    I tried using FireWire Target Disk Mode to copy files - with the 400MHz as Target I just get a spinning Beach Ball any time I click on the Icon. After far too long it opened up an empty window.
    With the 800MHz as the target, the 400MHz does not show it on the desktop, so I have no way of copying files to it.
    Anyone have some advice that doesn't involve a time machine?

    Whenever something starts going wrong with the computer I suggest you first boot from the installer disk, select language if applicable, choose utilities, run Disk Utility and verify (and repair if necessary) the drive. Then repair the permissions on your computer. You can also repair permissions from DU on your main drive while booted, but to properly verify and repair your drive you have to run it from a drive other than the boot drive.
    [Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214]
    [Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672]
    [Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751]
    From BDaqua (couldn't have said it better):
    "Try Disk Utility
    1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
    2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
    Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
    3. Click the First Aid tab.
    4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
    5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
    6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
    Then Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes."
    A few questions:
    Was this a retail installer disc that you used to do the upgrade?
    How much free space do you have on the computer?
    Did you use the [PPC Combo updater|http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateppc.html] to get to 10.4.11?
    Did you do all these updates in one single session or restart and check your computer had accepted them okay between each update? It is critical to repair permissions before and after each update otherwise the installers won't install fully and you end up with a mix of versions.
    You can set the Finder Preferences, general, to display a hard drive icon, but it sounds like your problems are going beyond that?
    You can also try trashing your Users -> home folder -> Library -> Preferences -> com.apple.finder.plist file and see if that clears up the issue. That sets the Finder preferences and if it gets corrupted it will cause Finder problems.

  • Finder and header bar icons disappear

    Hello everyone,
    Some icons disappear from my header bar and the finder, please see the screenshot:
    MacOS: Version 10.8.4
    Short before that happen, my disk was full and I removed some video/music in order to get some free space again. I don't know if this could have a impact?!
    Best regards,
    Matthieu

    Please read this whole message before doing anything.
    This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
    The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, or by corruption of certain system caches. 
    Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. Note: If FileVault is enabled on some models, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
    Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and  Wi-Fi on certain iMacs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
    The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

  • My Hard Drive has disappeared!

    I wonder if anyone can help me with a problem I'm having please. The icon for my main hard drive (start up disk) has gone from my desktop and is no longer displayed in finder. This also coincides with a noticeable drop in performance shown particularly when running Logic pro 7.2 which seems to struggle when only doing relatively modest processing.
    I thought it was a problem with the hard drive and after doing a repair and then full wipe and OS install (which made no difference) I then bought a brand new hard drive and installed OS 10.4 and then all the updates. This fixed the problem for about a week but then the same happened - the icon disappeared from desktop and finder.
    I have reset the PMU and have tried to reset the PRAM but this seems not to work and the machine ends up booting up in safe mode.
    Any ideas anyone?
    G5 dual 1.8 processors   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   4 GIG RAM

    What disk drive were you using? what did you buy?
    Not all drives work as well or compatible (most do though).
    I'd be buying 500GB drives.
    Where is your backup? Do you use SuperDuper, CloneX or something that makes bootable backups?
    When you repaired your drive, was that from disk drive; from DVD; other?
    Do you have Disk Warrior 4 to use?
    Sometimes bad memory causes disk drive problems and corruption.
    After resetting pram/nvram/pmu you have to reset the startup disk. That will not cause it to boot in Safe Mode.
    Do you use Applejack to repair your boot drive? tried using /sbin/fsck -fy in Single User Mode command?
    If I get a new drive or think a drive is having trouble, first thing I do is zero the drive.
    Was your boot drive half full? 3/4?
    Try keeping the boot drive under 50% and keep data on another drive, and 3-4th for scratch and editing to help performance.
    Apple Hardware Test CD
    Hardware Monitor
    - two other items to use.

Maybe you are looking for