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How to unhide a file/folder?

NoSmokingBandit

NoSmokingBandit

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 13, 2008
1,579
3
I have ntfs-3g installed so i can wire to my ntfs vista drive, but for some reason it mounts invisible. If i run the terminal command to show all files i can see my vista drive, but its transparent. Is there a way to make it visible all the time?
Thanks!
 
There was nothing in the info about hiding the drive and HideFolders only works on folders, not drives. Thanks for the idea though, any thing else i could try?
 
There are four ways to hide a file in Mac OS X Finder.

1. It hides files that begin with .

Fix: rename the file

2. If there is a .hidden file in a directory, it hides all the files in that directory that are listed in .hidden

Fix: remove the file's name from .hidden

3. It has the hidden flag set.

Solution: (in the terminal) chflags nohidden /Path/to/file

4. It uses a mac os 9 resource fork that is like a hidden flag

Solution: it's complicated, you need a program, and this isn't the problem.
 
This is what i get when i run that command in terminal:
Code: 
sh-3.2# chflags -R nohidden /Volumes/Vista
chflags: /Volumes/Vista/TheVolumeSettingsFolder/HFSExtentTables/AQU7RR34BJR1U5P0VQLADIUPBG/._1TRVC8QF00U5K96Q4C4AAJ6VAS: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Vista/TheVolumeSettingsFolder/HFSExtentTables/AQU7RR34BJR1U5P0VQLADIUPBG/1TRVC8QF00U5K96Q4C4AAJ6VAS: Input/output error
Theres no .hidden file and the drive named correctly so idk what the deal is.
I ran the command without the "-R" but nothing happened. Iirc, the '-R' flag makes it apply to directories instead of just files, correct?
 
NoSmokingBandit said:
This is what i get when i run that command in terminal:
Code: 
sh-3.2# chflags -R nohidden /Volumes/Vista
chflags: /Volumes/Vista/TheVolumeSettingsFolder/HFSExtentTables/AQU7RR34BJR1U5P0VQLADIUPBG/._1TRVC8QF00U5K96Q4C4AAJ6VAS: Input/output error
chflags: /Volumes/Vista/TheVolumeSettingsFolder/HFSExtentTables/AQU7RR34BJR1U5P0VQLADIUPBG/1TRVC8QF00U5K96Q4C4AAJ6VAS: Input/output error
Theres no .hidden file and the drive named correctly so idk what the deal is.
I ran the command without the "-R" but nothing happened. Iirc, the '-R' flag makes it apply to directories instead of just files, correct?
Click to expand...

As I suspected, it's not a matter of a hidden file. It looks like you have an I/O issue. Sorry. See if you can write anything to the volume through any means.
 
Yeah, i can read/write to the drive just fine. I just created several folder and deleted them with no problems. The partition shows up in Disk Utility fine and i just cant figure out what would make it act up. I have another NTFS and a FAT32 partition on that drive and both of them work perfectly.
 
Wait a minute. I'm a fool/I didn't pay enough attention. I just listed the four ways to hide a file in Mac OS, but I didn't mention that only the first two could be related to an NTFS partition. Of course I should have seen that that post was going to lead you to chflags it (though I don't know why you ad-libbed the -R flag...). You see, NTFS doesn't have unix flags. Of course it'll give you an IO error. Never mind that. Yeah, there's pretty much just the first two ways of having the file hidden. So it's got to be something else. Sorry, but whatever it is, I don't know what it is.
 
I have my BootCamp drive icon hidden on purpose, and it is NTFS- BUT I also have MacFUSE and NTFS-3G installed to allow writing to it from OSX so not having that may affect the results of the following Terminal commands that I used. I think I did this before I installed MacFUSE but cannot remember for sure.

To hide the NTFS drive icon (or any other drive icon for that matter):

SetFile -a V "/Volumes/Drive Name Goes Here"

(quotes required- substitute your drive name at the end obviously) ;)

To reset to visible, the same command but substituting a lower case v:

SetFile -a v "/Volumes/Drive Name Goes Here"

Perhaps trying the second to reset to visible could be useful.
 
Well, after downloading and installing XCode i am left with this:
Code: 
Steven:~ Steven$ setfile -a v "/Volumes/Vista"
ERROR: File Not Found. (-43)  on file: /Volumes/Vista
 
NoSmokingBandit said:
Well, after downloading and installing XCode i am left with this:
Code: 
Steven:~ Steven$ setfile -a v "/Volumes/Vista"
ERROR: File Not Found. (-43)  on file: /Volumes/Vista
Click to expand...

Darn- I apologize for that- I forgot you had to have the Developer's tools installed.:eek:

With the results you got I would have to say that there is something else going on then, as I just copied the commands out of my post to confirm, and naturally they worked just fine as I had hoped they might for you.:(

To somebody more Terminal savvy than I am (which pretty much includes everybody...) perhaps the error you got will be meaningful since the command was entered correctly yet it still cannot find the necessary entry in /Volumes.

One question though- if you do a cd /Volumes and press enter, then just ls and press enter, does it show your drive named "Vista" in the directory listing and is it capitalized as shown? I know I am grabbing at straws, but wish I could offer further info!
 
I didnt mind downloading the dev tools, i have a good connection and it only took a few minutes. Im not really familiar with the terminal, i can do basic stuff like delete and move files, so any help is good help. The drive is listed as "Vista" so it should have worked...
I dont mind no seeing it because i can get it it from the Go menu, but it makes me think something got screwed up somewhere along the line.
 
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