Can't hide Windows icon from OS X Desktop

[ToastMaster]

So I installed windows XP via Boot Camp on my MBP in FAT32, and can't figure out how to hide my XP icon from my desktop on OSX. I know that the easiest way to do it is rename the HD in Windows to something like ".Windows" (I've done it before on a previous partition), but for some reason it's not letting me do it this time. It just gives me the error message "the label is too long, or contains invalid characters.

I was able to rename it in NTFS, does that have something to do with it?

[apfhex]

I was able to rename it in NTFS, does that have something to do with it?
Yes. Mac OS X cannot write to NTFS. You must rename it in Windows.

Of course, you could always turn off displaying of hard drive icons in the Finder preferences, too.

[ToastMaster]

No, you misunderstand.. I'm using FAT32, and I can't seem to rename it to ".Windows" in Windows without getting some error message. I used NTFS before with no problems doing this (which I thought was kind of weird.)

[Ike]

so what do you do? how?

[swiftaw]

I think . might be an illegal character in FAT32

[hopejr]

Yes, you cannot have periods in disk labels on FAT32. IIRC from back in my old DOS days, FAT partitions can only have volume labels of 11 characters long that are alphanumeric and allow underscores.

[Glen Quagmire]

The easiest way to hide your XP drives is to tell OS X not to mount them.

Start Terminal.
Type:


sudo -w /etc/fstab


Type your password at the prompt and press RETURN. This will start nano, a Un*x editor.

For each drive you want to hide, type the following:


LABEL=<<drive name>> none ntfs ro,noauto 0 0


Replace "<<drive name>>" with the name of the volume you want to hide. If your drive is called "Windows", for example:


LABEL=Windows none ntfs ro,noauto 0 0


Make sure you type this in exactly as shown - spaces are important.

Press CTRL+O to save.
Make sure it says "/etc/fstab" and press RETURN.
Press CTRL+X to exit nano.
Quit Terminal.
Reboot.

If you want to mount the drive at any time, you can do so via Disk Utility.

[hotboiled]

sudo -w /etc/fstab

=

sudo: illegal option `-w'
usage: sudo -K | -L | -V | -h | -k | -l | -v
usage: sudo [-HPSb] [-p prompt] [-u username|#uid]
{ -e file [...] | -i | -s | <command> }

[balamw]

sudo: illegal option `-w'

Try
sudo nano -w /etc/fstab

The -w means don't wrap lines.

B

[macwhack]

isnt there any other way .
I just want to hide my windows xp harddisk icon and not dismount it on startup.

[balamw]

If NTFS, rename it as mentioned earlier in the thread. boot to XP, rename to ".Windows", boot back to OS X. If FAT32, you're out of luck.

B

[Archmagination]

Is there anyway to undue the: sudo nano -w /etc/fstab ?
It didn't work for me and it seems to be slowing my computer down on Startup now.

[balamw]

Is there anyway to undue the: sudo nano -w /etc/fstab ?
It didn't work for me and it seems to be slowing my computer down on Startup now.

Run sudo nano -w /etc/fstab again and undo the changes you made to the file.

Side note. Always a good idea to back up a file before you modify it. Should have been mentioned in the instructions above.

B

[jhelm85]

Also note that if your windows partition is fat32, you should replace ntfs with msdos


For each drive you want to hide, type the following:


LABEL=<<drive name>> none ntfs ro,noauto 0 0


Replace "<<drive name>>" with the name of the volume you want to hide. If your drive is called "Windows", for example:


LABEL=Windows none ntfs ro,noauto 0 0


Make sure you type this in exactly as shown - spaces are important.



source: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060930150059172
source: man fstab