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Accidentally deleted HDD icon, can't restart iBook

W

wonderwhy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 17, 2008
4
0
After accidentally deleting the HDD icon on the desktop - stupid, indeed - and emptying the trash, there's no more reaction from my iBook, just a blinking folder with a question mark.

Restarting doesn't work, there is no way to shut it down. When trying to restart it with the OS-disk, it can't find the hard disk to re-install it. Accessing the HDD from an external sever likewise does not show the iBook's HDD.

Is there any way to recover the HDD?

Your advice would be most welcome!
 
Hmm, how did you manage that? :)

You should be able to run Disk Utility from your CD and see the drive from there. If it doesn't show up in DU then it's likely an issue with the drive itself (or its connection) rather than a software issue. I don't know of a way to "delete" the drive from within OS X as you think you have done.
 
Deleting any system file will require a password!

So if this isnt a joke..... you'll have to reinstall Mac OS X!
 
Thanks a lot for your quick reply!

Tried to run Disk Utility from the CD (several times), but DU didn't find the drive.

How can I check if the the connection is the problem? Do I need to get to the drive inside the iBook, or is here another way to check the connection (sounds like a stupid question, but then I'm no engineer, just know how to plug in something....).

Cheers,
M.
 
Thanks - no joke, unfortunately. Tried several times to re-install Max OS X, to no avail, as OS can't find the HDD.
You mentioned that deleting the HDD requires PW. This happened to my little son who doesn't know the admin PW (well, so I think & hope). This could be an indication that it is the HDD itself which is the culprit in this affair, respectively the bumpy roads we travelled in recent months.

Cheers,
M.
 
g4cubed said:
Could it be that your HDD just died and the reason it disappeared.
Click to expand...
No, he clearly said he tossed it.

wonderwhy said:
Thanks - no joke, unfortunately. Tried several times to re-install Max OS X, to no avail, as OS can't find the HDD.
You mentioned that deleting the HDD requires PW. This happened to my little son who doesn't know the admin PW (well, so I think & hope). This could be an indication that it is the HDD itself which is the culprit in this affair, respectively the bumpy roads we travelled in recent months.

Cheers,
M.
Click to expand...
Was it you or your son?
Did you ever make a backup using time machine? Or do you have another Mac where you can get an external drive and boot from that to see what's up?
 
jessica. said:
No, he clearly said he tossed it.
Click to expand...
Yes but to trash your HDD takes a password, no? And on top of that emptying the trash with the HDD in there running the OS should state can not complete function because app is in use.
 
g4cubed said:
Yes but to trash your HDD takes a password, no? And on top of that emptying the trash with the HDD in there running the OS should state can not complete function because app is in use.
Click to expand...

This is true, either that or it wil say it's locked. Unless you have it set to always trash no matter what (control+click etc) which can be a very bad thing if you use it casually.
 
It sounds either like a drive error, or the internal drive has somehow been unmounted and isn't re-mounting. More likely an error though, IMO.
 
kkat69 said:
This is true, either that or it wil say it's locked. Unless you have it set to always trash no matter what (control+click etc) which can be a very bad thing if you use it casually.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure it would delete even having it set that way. It would be deleting the running OS and don't think it could.
 
Here's a question: how do you delete the hard disk icon? You can't drag it to the trash - that would eject it if anything - but OSX won't let you eject the startup drive.

You can't right click and send it to the trash, or use Cmd-Backspace.

You may have moved it/hidden it underneath another icon; but not deleted it. If it's truly missing, it's more likely a disk error.
 
I understand that it must be the hard drive which stopped functioning and that here's no way to recover it. Luckily, years of photos on iphoto were saved elsewhere before the crash, while the rest is gone, music on itunes included. Will learn now how to use Time Machine for backups....

Many thanks for your thoughful analysis and remarks, Nermal, Apple Ink, g4cubed, jessica, kkat69 and whooleytoo.

Cheers,
M.
 
The icon is an alias, to get it back you would go "Finder - Preferences - General" and select the drive to appear.

You cannot eject the root drive while it is in use, and you certainly cant remove anything, this includes the unix directories (/bin,/etc,/var...) and /System and /Library as they have a sticky bit attached, even root user cannot delete these.


Reset PRAM, boot holding down option key and select the drive you want when it appears.
 
If above doesnt work ^^

Its an HDD problem! Is DU from the install disk showing the internal drive? If not then its kaput!
 
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