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Finder: Doesn't search external drive

pullman

pullman

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2008
706
103
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hi

I have a USB connected NTFS drive which seems properly mounted in Leopard. I can look around in it, copy files etc. But in Finder I can't search. Perhaps I'm missing something about how the Search box works? What happens is the following:

I select the drive in question in the sidebar under "Devices" and then I type in my search phrase (in this case ".mp3" as I want to know how many such files there are).

Finder then displays hits from "This Mac" (which is clear from the little bar above the column headings (where I can also selected "Contents" or "File Name")) and not the drive I wanted to search. Why is this?

And if I click the drive name in that bar, it says "Searching (drive name)" at the bottom of the Finder window for several seconds and then nothing, zip, nada comes up even though I know there are loads of mp3s on the drive.

I'm very confused here, please help!
/p
 
E

ewilson6

macrumors 6502
Nov 30, 2006
368
3
From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
Click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag a folder or even an entire volume (your hard drive) to the list.
Remove the item or volume you just added.
Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.
 
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wrldwzrd89

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5
Jun 6, 2003
12,110
77
Solon, OH
pullman said:
Hi

I have a USB connected NTFS drive which seems properly mounted in Leopard. I can look around in it, copy files etc. But in Finder I can't search. Perhaps I'm missing something about how the Search box works? What happens is the following:

I select the drive in question in the sidebar under "Devices" and then I type in my search phrase (in this case ".mp3" as I want to know how many such files there are).

Finder then displays hits from "This Mac" (which is clear from the little bar above the column headings (where I can also selected "Contents" or "File Name")) and not the drive I wanted to search. Why is this?

And if I click the drive name in that bar, it says "Searching (drive name)" at the bottom of the Finder window for several seconds and then nothing, zip, nada comes up even though I know there are loads of mp3s on the drive.

I'm very confused here, please help!
/p
Click to expand...
The problem is that it's an NTFS drive. Mac OS X doesn't know how to write to NTFS drives, which prevents Spotlight from indexing them, and thus searching them.
 
M

mrhs

macrumors newbie
Mar 21, 2009
1
0
Finder Search Function Solution

ewilson6 said:
From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
Click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag a folder or even an entire volume (your hard drive) to the list.
Remove the item or volume you just added.
Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.
Click to expand...

I tried this solution and it worked, both for Spotlight and Finder. I have an external drive where I store the majority of my projects and resources. Until recently, Finder could find everything and I used the function frequently. Then, when I updated Mac 10.5 to the latest, it no longer worked. I added and then deleted the drive from Spotlight's privacy setting (as directed above by "ewilson6") and voila! It's back to it's wonderful (sort of) old self...
Thanks for the tip!
 
G

GBPolivka

macrumors newbie
Apr 28, 2009
2
0
I did this and the entire drive went "poof"

ewilson6 said:
From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
Click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag a folder or even an entire volume (your hard drive) to the list.
Remove the item or volume you just added.
Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.
Click to expand...

I dragged the external drive from Finder into Spotlight's Privacy list, and it disappeared as though it was being moved to trash, and now it won't even come up on finder. I can't undo, and I can't access the drive at all, even after powering down, disconnecting and reconnecting the drive. Please help! :(
 
G

GBPolivka

macrumors newbie
Apr 28, 2009
2
0
I did this and the entire drive went "poof"

ewilson6 said:
From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
Click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag a folder or even an entire volume (your hard drive) to the list.
Remove the item or volume you just added.
Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.
Click to expand...

I dragged the external drive from Finder into Spotlight's Privacy list, and it disappeared as though it was being moved to trash, and now it won't even come up on finder. I can't undo, and I can't access the drive at all, even after powering down, disconnecting and reconnecting the drive. Please help! :(
 
S

SamNeeds

macrumors regular
Dec 28, 2007
178
0
Download and install an app called MainMenu. Use that to rebuild the spotlight index.
 
K

KeepItFunky

macrumors newbie
Mar 4, 2011
1
0
GBPolivka said:
I dragged the external drive from Finder into Spotlight's Privacy list, and it disappeared as though it was being moved to trash, and now it won't even come up on finder. I can't undo, and I can't access the drive at all, even after powering down, disconnecting and reconnecting the drive. Please help! :(
Click to expand...

I think one will find that SamNeeds' suggestion is not necessary. Simply, re-drag the external drives back to the sidebar, and they will reappear.
 
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