A better way to make Automator mount a volume?

whitman said:

I'm new to Automator (10.8.3). I made an Automator application, using the Record function, to mount a volume on a drive connected to my Mini. I also made a similar one to eject it. I use them as Calendar-triggered events as part of my backup scheme.

They work well ... until I restart the Mini, when occasionally my two connected drives will mount in a different order. What happens then is that the sequence of mouse clicks recorded in Automator don’t find the correct volume.

I wonder if there’s a better way to automate the mounting of a currently ejected disc (and later its ejection). Automator, as far as I can see, does not have the actions I need. It has Ask For/Connect to/Get specified Servers, but they seem only to be for network-connected stuff.

Anyone know a better way?

Click to expand...

whitman said:

Thanks kryten. I found Automator uphill, but this is beyond me, I think. Can you explain what I'd need to do?

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diskutil list

whitman said:

Kryten, much appreciated. There's a screenshot below of the Terminal window as instructed.

The volume I want to mount and to eject is "CLONE SprDpr".

I've also attached my Automator app.

Click to expand...

set theExitStatus to do shell script "mount | grep CLONE 1> /dev/null ; echo $?"

activate application "Disk Utility"
tell application "System Events"
	tell process "Disk Utility"
		set frontmost to true
		-- insert GUI Scripting statements here
		set myOutline to outline 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of window "Disk Utility"
		set allRows to rows in myOutline
		set diskNameVals to value of static text of every row in myOutline
		repeat with i from 1 to (count diskNameVals)
			set diskNameVal to item 1 of item i of diskNameVals
			if (diskNameVal as string = "CLONE SprDpr") then
				tell row i of myOutline
					select
					delay 2
				end tell
				if theExitStatus = "1" then
					keystroke "M" using {command down, shift down}
				else
					keystroke "U" using {command down, shift down}
				end if
			end if
		end repeat
	end tell
end tell

delay 5
tell application "Disk Utility" to quit

whitman said:

Kryten, the Calendar event mounts the ejected volume of my WD Firewire-connected drive, just before my scheduled SuperDuper backup. It also runs a little later to eject the volume once again.

The bits that aren't identified in the sequence are the mouse-clicks to get to Disk Utility, and to close various windows afterward.

I don't want my drives mounted the rest of the time because they are noisy, even when idle, and distracting from my work.

As I said in my original post, this is all working fine ... except when I occasionally and inevitably have a restart, and my two connected drives then decide to mount in a different order. Then the sequence of mouse clicks recorded in Automator will not find the correct volume. So I've been looking for another way to do the same thing that doesn't need to physically find the correct volume in Disk Utility.

I'm not sure your script takes that into account, or do I misunderstand you?

Click to expand...

1. Select the "CLONE SprDpr" volume
2. Click mount
3. Do my Super Duper thing
4. Select my "CLONE SprDpr" volume or the disk it resides on
5. Click Unmount or Eject. There is a difference in result.

whitman said:

Kryten, your powers are intact. I ran the script and it works perfectly to mount the volume - wherever it may reside in Disk Utility. Thank you!

Two more things I need to know, I think.
1. How do I modify the script to make a script to eject the same volume.
2. How do I then deploy the scripts as Calendar-triggered events?

I'm not clear what you mean by the numbered sequence.

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1. Run the script again. It will unmount the volume. Can you try this and see if the result is satisfactory?
2. I'm working on my old G4 Mac mini right now. I'll fire up a ML machine to see if Calendar still supports running Applescripts. I'll also test putting the script into Automator. I'll let you know the results.

whitman said:

Thanks Kryten. I've run the script again and it does indeed eject as well. Perfect.

I'm not quite with you on creating the Run Applescript action. Not sure what you mean by "remove the on run handler part".

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