How do I change a drive name in Mountain Lion?

[LarryLion]

This is probably a dumb newbie question. Just switched from PC to Mac, and I'm finding little bits out as I go along. So, question #1: I want to change the name of an external USB drive. I tried editing the name in place, no dice. I'm running a MB Pro, with Mountain Lion.

Thanks in advance

 

[leman]

This is probably a dumb newbie question. Just switched from PC to Mac, and I'm finding little bits out as I go along. So, question #1: I want to change the name of an external USB drive. I tried editing the name in place, no dice. I'm running a MB Pro, with Mountain Lion.

Thanks in advance

You have to format (erase) it with Disk Utility, there you can set the name.

 

[LarryLion]

You have to format (erase) it with Disk Utility, there you can set the name.

Damn, that's dumb. I guess I'll just mount it on a PC, change it there.

 

[SpazzyMac]

What The Crap?

I can Easily, Rename the OS Harddrive and the External one from the Desktop Harddrive shortcuts...
just like renaming a file

 

[T5BRICK]

Mac OSX can read, but not write to NTFS volumes(without 3rd party software). Chances are, the USB drive you're using was formatted as NTFS on a PC.

 

[wethackrey]

You have to format (erase) it with Disk Utility, there you can set the name.

No no no no... That is NOT true. Assuming there's not a permissions problem on the external drive, there are myriad ways to change the name without reformatting:

1) In the Finder select the drive and do a Get Info on it (Command-I). The "Name and Extension" field in the information pane is editable. You can rename the volume here.
2) In the side bar of any window, the drive is listed in Devices. Control click (or right click) on the drive. A rename option appears in the drop-down menu.
3) If you're a DOS guy and you want to feel at home, open the Terminal. In Terminal type
cd /Volumes
then
ls -la
You'll see a listing of attached volumes including your external drive. Type this:

sudo mv oldname newname

If these methods don't work, you either have a permissions problem or the drive is not writable.

What kind of drive is this, by the way? Meaning how is it formatted? If it's NTFS then this would be a great time to install the Paragon NTFS driver. Twenty bucks I think, but well worth it. NTFS volumes are read only under MacOS. The Paragon driver makes them read/write. I installed it years ago and haven't thought about it since. It just works. Paragon also make a driver for ext3/ext4 if you do a lot of work with Linux volumes.

 

[leman]

No no no no... That is NOT true. Assuming there's not a permissions problem on the external drive, there are myriad ways to change the name without reformatting

Oh, I didn't know about that. Sorry about the noise

 

[wethackrey]

Oh, I didn't know about that. Sorry about the noise

No worries. Just didn't want the OP, who's new to the Mac, running off and formatting his drive.

 

[DurfDiggler]

You guys are talking VOLUMES... I'm talking DRIVE

Hello all,
wethackrey, you mention several methods to rename VOLUME. I want to rename the drive.

I inherited a MBP, named the disk (500Gb) "BootDisk"(I've had issues with the default name). I then bought an SSD, installed it, named it BootSSD. I put BootDisk in an external enclosure. Cloned with Carbon Copy Cloner- from BootDisk to BootSSD. Then I partitioned BootDisk with volumes TimeMachine (Encrypted Logical Partition) and Storage (ExFat). I believe the original Recovery partition might still be on the spinner, but it doesn't show up in Disk Utility, only when I boot from recovery, but it doesn't say at what point it is mounted; (I haven't booted in recovery without the external connected).

Now, TimeMachine & Storage show up on drive BootDisk, and I can't rename it.

I don't have any serious reason to rename it, I just want it to be called Ext500; because I'm particular, I guess.

Thanks in advance!