HD disappearing act

[Artful Dodger]

Hi, I'm not sure what to make of this but within the last few days my HD on my desktop seems to let it's name disappear. I've run the usual verify/repair permissions and even run the Hardware test disc but nothing seems to work to get it's name back.
Also when I go to do a screen capture, I hear the snap sound but nothing appears on the desktop Once I do a restart, the pics are there but still no HD name. No name in any open window/menu bar/menu side bar or even when my external drive is on the main HD shows up blank.
I'm not sure what to make of this. I just tried to do the last update thinking that would help but nothing I really would like to avoid doing a re-install but I'd do it if that would help.
Any ideas would be welcome as I need to get a lot of things finished this week (it always happens like that ) Thanks…

 

[mad jew]

What was it named? Did you put a full stop (period) at the start of its name?

 

[IJ Reilly]

This sounds like a hard drive problem. Do you know how to run fsck in Single User Mode? If not, here's how:

Restart with the cmd-s keys held down, until you see a black screen with white characters. After the text stops scrolling, at the command prompt, type:

fsck -f [including the space, return]

If any repairs are reported, run fsck again until none are reported. Then, at the command prompt, type:

reboot [return]

 

[Artful Dodger]

What was it named? Did you put a full stop (period) at the start of its name?

Hi, no I leave the name alone so the HD is just as when I bought it (Macintosh HD). I've seen kids at some schools hide the HD icons and whatnot just so they can try to get out of class (lol) so I made sure nothing was checked to hide the name or icon. Also this seemed to happen when it was asleep as I don't shut down my iMac unless there is a storm rolling in. I clicked the mouse and that's when I noticed the name and my screenshots were no longer.

One more thing is when I was doing work in Flash 8 it seemed really off. I would do certain things as normal and no responce so I even changed the batteries in my new BT Apple KB and Mighty Mouse but no luck.

I tried dragging files from other areas and the names all stayed put and showed up just fine on my desktop.

Here is another screenshot: it's odd that the HD in the window is off to the upper left side yet if I click on say the desktop or any other sidebar item they are in the top center of the window

I'll try the fsck in Single User Mode and see what happens. Funny thing is I was going to clean all the extra programs/files I don't need anymore off it and do a custom install of OSX at the week end anyway
Thanks for the help and I'll post an update by tuesday…always something to learn about even if you don't like the way it happens.
Thanks again