MacOS icon missing

riscy · Aug 15, 2008

After using Parallels on a MB 10.5.3, the MacOS icon has disappeared. It does not show on the desktop or in finder.

I have repaired permissions, verified drive (booting from MacOS X disk) created a new account, and all messages say the disk is fine and everything is ok. In disk utility it is shown as mounted at / (with a line under it, which I think is correct). The icon for my Windows partition is fine, but I cannot se what the problem is caused by.

Any ideas where the problem lies?? I searched the forums but saw no similar posts.

crees! · Aug 15, 2008

You mean the hard drive icon? Try checking the view options window in Finder and see if the hard drive icon is unchecked.

riscy · Aug 15, 2008

Yes the grey disk icon is no longer showing on the desktop.

I checked as you said, and the drives icon is ticked, and so the No Name (PC partition shows up), but nothing else.

xUKHCx · Aug 19, 2008

Perhap try trashing your Finder preference file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder

Keep a copy of it in case it didn't work.

If you can't find a way around it then you could always create an alias to it on the desktop. Cmd+shift+C then cmd+opt drag the icon to the desktop, this obviously has some disadvantages but may act as a suitable work around in the short term.

riscy · Aug 20, 2008

Thanks for the ideas, but I cannot get to Library/Preferences etc - I tried searching by file name, library and preferences. I could not get access to the file you mentioned. That sounds like it is the likely problem.

Also when I go to computer, the icon is not there, but it does show up in Disk Utility. Is there any other way to navigate or access the files you suggest - I assume so as the OS is Unix based.

xUKHCx · Aug 20, 2008

Did it show up in the new account? If so then it could be preferences file or a problem with the caches

riscy said:
Thanks for the ideas, but I cannot get to Library/Preferences etc - I tried searching by file name, library and preferences. I could not get access to the file you mentioned. That sounds like it is the likely problem.

Sorry the ~/ part of the location given above means your user directory so the full path would be

/Users/riscy/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

riscy said:
Also when I go to computer, the icon is not there, but it does show up in Disk Utility. Is there any other way to navigate or access the files you suggest - I assume so as the OS is Unix based.

You can navigate the to the folder via Disk Utility, if you ctrl+click (right cick) on the drive in Disk Utility. Select Open "Macintosh HD" (or whatever you called it) then when the folder opens cmd+opt drag the little icon at the top to the desktop.

This will create an alias to the folder. this is of course only a temporary work around and does have down sides.

If that doesn't work then there are possible ways via terminal to create links (symlinks).

riscy · Aug 20, 2008

Many thanks for the ideas and the help. Here is what happened:

Ok, on the account I use every day (non admin) that file was not there in the Preferences folder, so I logged into the admin account I have and found a copy there. I moved it to the desktop and then restarted, still no icon, so I used the other tip you gave (how did you know that??) and created an alias of the disk on both account desktops.

It is very odd that this has happened, adn I would just like to get the proper icon back on the desktop.

Cheers, and many thanks for the advice.

nft · Aug 20, 2008

Hello,
The same thing just happened to me, although I'm not using parallels. Anyhow after a bit of Googling it seems that the drive has been made invisible, which was confirmed by a quick check with a little program called 'show-hide files'. So now I've made all files visible and it's back on the desktop...along with a bunch of other invisible files I don't want to see.

Can't seem to find out how to only make my Mac HD visible without seeing all the other unwanted files. If anyone could help, much appreciated.

Brett

mattrobs · Aug 21, 2008

nft said:
Can't seem to find out how to only make my Mac HD visible without seeing all the other unwanted files. If anyone could help, much appreciated.

There are two ways items are made hidden. The first is the period as the first character. If there is one (.), remove it and the item'll become visible again.

Second is a hidden attribute in the items's meta data. Run this in Terminal (Leopard only):

Code:

chflags nohidden /Volumes/NameOfHDD

With "NameOfHDD" replaced with the name of volume hidden, obviously. Use a backslash before a space to escape it; for example, the default name has a space:

Code:

chflags nohidden /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

nft · Aug 21, 2008

Thanks mattrobs, however when I did that it replied 'permission denied'.

Brett

riscy · Aug 21, 2008

Thanks for the suggestion mattrobs.

I tried that too and had no luck - I also get a permission denied message.

xUKHCx · Aug 21, 2008

nft said:
Thanks mattrobs, however when I did that it replied 'permission denied'.

Brett

You might need to add the command "sudo" to the front

e.g.

sudo chflags nohidden /Volumes/Pepe

riscy said:
Thanks for the suggestion mattrobs.

I tried that too and had no luck - I get a message no such file or directory.

nft are you using an admin account? If not try that, although I just tried on my regular daily account and the HD still did not show up, but I did not get the same error message as you.

No such file or directory sounds like you haven't properly formatted the path, i.e. not escaped the space as suggested above.

riscy · Aug 21, 2008

This is the error message I get using UKHC's sudo command. Still confused as to what is going on here.

"riscy2 is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
riscy-es-macbook-2:~ riscy2$ postdrop: warning: unable to look up public/pickup: No such file or directory"

This is my main (non admin account).

xUKHCx · Aug 21, 2008

riscy said:
This is the error message I get using UKHC's sudo command. Still confused as to what is going on here.

This is my main (non admin account).

riscy2 is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
riscy-es-macbook-2:~ riscy2$ postdrop: warning: unable to look up public/pickup: No such file or directory

THe first error is because you are in a non admin account and as such you do not have the ability to use the sudo command. In regards to the second warning I don't know

But I think it is an error based on the first, so try it from the admin account where the sudo command should work.

nft · Aug 21, 2008

Thanks for all the assistance.

I added the sudo command, looked good when it asked me for my password, but then came up with

chflags: invalid flag: nohidden/

Any more ideas? Thx

mattrobs · Aug 21, 2008

nft said:
Thanks for all the assistance.

I added the sudo command, looked good when it asked me for my password, but then came up with

chflags: invalid flag: nohidden/

Any more ideas? Thx

You made a typo. Make sure there's a space after 'nohidden'. You have a '/'.

nft · Aug 21, 2008

Thanks genii, all better now.

riscy · Aug 22, 2008

I will try when I get home and let you know what happens.

riscy · Aug 22, 2008

No joy for me here

Any other ideas guys?

xUKHCx · Aug 22, 2008

riscy said:
No joy for me here Any other ideas guys?

Any error messages?

Try doing

sudo chflags hidden /Volumes/Pepe

Then

sudo chflags nohidden /Volumes/Pepe

If that doesn't work the only other thing I can think of trying is reapplying the latest combo update (with 10.5.5 seemingly quite close and if you have a download cap then it may be worth waiting for that to be released and running that combo).

I see you are running 10.5.3 any reason why?

Anyway
10.5.3 combo
10.5.4 combo
When 10.5.5 is released it will most likely be here combo

riscy · Aug 22, 2008

I am on 10.5.4 now but I think the problem happened when I was on 10.5.3 I will try the combo updates as you suggest, but I might wait for 10.5.5. Cheers

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