Can't Change Hard Drive Icon

[mac4drew]

Hey everyone,

I'm having some trouble changing my hard disk's icon... I can't select it in Get Info to paste in a new icon. It happened randomly after I pasted in one icon, subsequently I couldn't select the icon again...

I have tried repairing permissions and my disk (just via Apple's Disk Utility) and that did absolutely nothing.

I haven't tried changing it over Target Disk Mode and for all I know that might work... but I would kind of like to be able to change my icon without turning off my computer.

I remember in OS 9 you had to make sure File Sharing on the disk was off before you were allowed to modify the icon. I'm aware that that's not how it works in OS X but I tried it for good measure anyway to no avail.

I'm running 10.4.6 on a MacBook Pro 2 GHz. The drive whose icon I'm trying to change is my Startup Disk. I have ~10GB/100GB free on it.

I recently installed the whole Boot Camp deal and (obviously) had to repartition my disk. Afterwards my Mac HD was unaccessible until I ran Disk Utility off my install CD to repair it. Although this icon problem cropped up about a week after the install, I suppose it's possible that it could be related. Interestingly enough, I'm having no problems changing my Windows partition's icon.

So... does anyone have any possible causes/fixes? Thanks!

 

[Glenn Wolsey]

This happened to me last week, it was pretty hard to fix and I really dont know how I did in the end.

Run all clean up scripts (with Onyx) , Restart the machine, and see if that works.

 

[mac4drew]

Well... I cleaned everything except the logs and the Cookies, Bookmark Icons, and Form Values (since I'm assuming they'd have no bearing and I don't necessarily want them erased, let me know if I should do that). Then I restarted.

And it's still not changing! Stupid icon!

Thanks anyway for the help. Any other ideas?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Enable "View all files" in Finder, either by (Onyx?,) TinkerTool or Terminal (defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES) then find and get rid of the file /.VolumeIcon.icns and see if that helps...

 

[mac4drew]

Enable "View all files" in Finder, either by (Onyx?,) TinkerTool or Terminal (defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES) then find and get rid of the file /.VolumeIcon.icns and see if that helps...

That did it! Thank you so much.

 

[jca488]

Enable "View all files" in Finder, either by (Onyx?,) TinkerTool or Terminal (defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES) then find and get rid of the file /.VolumeIcon.icns and see if that helps...

Mitthrawnuruodo I LOVE YOU!
thanksSSSSSSSSSSSSS A WHOLE LOT

 

[moook]

That did it! Thank you so much.

hi friend, i still facing the problem of cant changing the external hard drive icon. I already try to type the sentence into my terminal but stil the same.

Do you mind to share with me how you do that?

 

[Saturn007]

Much thanks for the tip!

moook-- open Terminal, then copy and paste this

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
and press return.

Nothing will happen, but return to the Finder. Bring up the search box. You'll need to set two criteria for your search-- Name, of course, but also File Visibility.

Click the plus sign to add a criterion.

The criterion name has an up and down arrow on it, where you can select the File Visibility criterion. Then choose Visible Items and select "Visible or Invisible".

The VolumeIcon file appears and you can trash it. Once you do so, the current icon vanishes and is replaced by the default one. That restores the icon copy, paste functionality.

You can open pictures in Preview, select All, Copy, and paste them into the Info icon square. Works like a charm.

-----------------------------------

Now, I did have a question. What's the command for restoring the default Finder behavior? Just rebooted and discovered a mass of files that I don't want to see or look at!

Did some digging.


defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

seems to do the trick and bring back to my original state. Or, am I just kidding myself?

 

[GGJstudios]

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

seems to do the trick and bring back to my original state. Or, am I just kidding myself?

That's the right command to re-hide hidden files.

To show hidden files in Finder, enter the following two commands into a Terminal window (press enter after each line):

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder​

To hide hidden files in Finder, enter the following two commands into a Terminal window (press enter after each line):

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder​