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My Mac icon missing of the desktop

just bought a 750gb Maxtor Onetouch III external drive.

When I try to partition it I get an error ;

Disk Erase Failed

Disk Erase failed with the error:

File system formatter failed

Log shows ;

30/10/2007 21:20:01 Disk Utility[1486] Preparing to erase : “Maxtor”

30/10/2007 21:20:01 Disk Utility[1486] Partition Scheme: Master Boot Record

30/10/2007 21:20:01 Disk Utility[1486] 1 volume will be created

30/10/2007 21:20:01 Disk Utility[1486] Name : “Maxtor”

30/10/2007 21:20:01 Disk Utility[1486] Size : 698.6 GB

30/10/2007 21:20:01 Disk Utility[1486] Filesystem : Mac OS Extended


30/10/2007 21:20:01 Disk Utility[1486] Creating partition map.

30/10/2007 21:20:04 Disk Utility[1486] Formatting disk1s1 as Mac OS Extended with name Maxtor.

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486] Disk Erase failed with the error:

File system formatter failed.

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486] Erase complete.

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486]

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486] Disk Utility failed during an unspecified action with the error:

File system formatter failed.

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486] Erase complete.

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486]

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486] Erase complete.

30/10/2007 21:20:06 Disk Utility[1486]


Any ideas?

Many Thanks

Edit: Ummm, okay If I partition the drive in two, 1 641.37 gb and the other as 82.08gb it works okay....
 
anyone?

I used diskutilty to backup the entire drive to an image on an external drive.

When i mount the backup image it only mounts the bootcamp partition which incidentally is the only drive icon showing when i boot up the mac.

What should I do?
 
i am having the same issue after installing leopard.

After installing Leopard my Macintosh HD drive is invisible.

I checked the attributes in Terminal and it is set as invisible. I looked around on the internet and I found this command after installing Developer Tools:

sudo /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v /Volumes/"Macintosh HD"

The problem is after it sets my drive as visible, it doesn't stick. After I restart or sometimes just after I launch finder afterwards without restarting, the drive will re-hide itself. Anyone have any idea what's wrong and how to fix it?


UPDATE: I also did an archive and install. Still didn't fix it.
 
Hmmm, wonder if running a "Repair Disk Permissions" from Disk Utility would fix this. Apparently this function works silently now and takes a while. Kick it off before heading out for lunch or a coffee break and see if that fixes things.
 
dvd said:
Hmmm, wonder if running a "Repair Disk Permissions" from Disk Utility would fix this. Apparently this function works silently now and takes a while. Kick it off before heading out for lunch or a coffee break and see if that fixes things.
Click to expand...

yep tried that. also tried repair disk
 
Hmm, saw the Apple Support doc you linked to, the command is effectively identical to the one above as /Volumes/Macintosh HD is a symbolic link to /.

Could you paste in the output from the following Terminal commands?

ls -laFd /
ls -laF /Volumes
mdls /

(Note, these commands don't change anything.. they just display the Unix directory info and metadata attributes)

Thanks!
 
dvd said:
Hmm, saw the Apple Support doc you linked to, the command is effectively identical to the one above as /Volumes/Macintosh HD is a symbolic link to /.

Could you paste in the output from the following Terminal commands?

ls -laFd /
ls -laF /Volumes
mdls /

(Note, these commands don't change anything.. they just display the Unix directory info and metadata attributes)

Thanks!
Click to expand...


Macintosh:~ Pete$ ls -lafd /
drwxrwxr-t@ 38 root admin 1360 Nov 1 03:31 /
Macintosh:~ Pete$ ls -laF /Volumes
total 72
drwxrwxrwt@ 7 root admin 238 Nov 1 03:26 ./
drwxrwxr-t@ 38 root admin 1360 Nov 1 03:31 ../
-rwxrwxrwx 1 Pete Pete 82 Jul 29 13:01 ._BADZMARA*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 Pete Pete 82 Jul 17 15:06 ._PETER WU'S*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 Pete Pete 82 Oct 14 13:17 ._peteNano*
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Nov 1 03:26 Macintosh HD@ -> /
drwxr-xr-x 1 Pete Pete 20480 Oct 30 20:55 Vista/
Macintosh:~ Pete$ mdls /
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2007-11-01 03:31:24 -0400
kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2007-04-28 02:20:37 -0400
kMDItemFSCreatorCode = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 16384
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon = 0
kMDItemFSInvisible = 1
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery = 0
kMDItemFSLabel = 0
kMDItemFSName = "Macintosh HD"
kMDItemFSNodeCount = 34
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 80
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 0
kMDItemFSSize = (null)
kMDItemFSTypeCode = ""
kMDItemLastUsedDate = 2007-11-01 03:32:13 -0400
kMDItemUsedDates = (
2007-11-01 00:00:00 -0400
)
 
okay, so the only diffs that could matter between your config and mine:

kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 16384
kMDItemFSInvisible = 1

I have zero for both of those values. Definitely seems like the Invisible attribute is the problem.

fyi, 16384 = 0100 0000 0000 0000 = 0x4000 = kIsInvisible in FinderFlags, so both lines say basically the same thing

No idea what in/about Finder would be resetting that to 1 after you set it to zero, though. Sorry!
 
here's something interesting i found

it only reverts back to invisible when i directly click Macintosh HD in the sidebar. if i just access the drive through column view without directly clicking on the drive, it stays visible
 
OK, last thing I can think to try,

do the above command so you can see it in finder
do a 'Get Info' on it in the GUI. Go all the way to the bottom and there should be a lock in the lower right-hand corner of the get info screen.
click that to unlock, you'll provide your admin password
once it's unlocked, go into terminal and:
mdls /
to see what the current setting is
then do the above command to set it to visible again (even if it's visible already)
then do the 'mdls /' again to verify it changed
then do a 'sync' to make sure the change is written out to disk
then maybe restart finder or reboot?

worth a shot. seems like a bug to me.
 
dvd said:
OK, last thing I can think to try,

do the above command so you can see it in finder
do a 'Get Info' on it in the GUI. Go all the way to the bottom and there should be a lock in the lower right-hand corner of the get info screen.
click that to unlock, you'll provide your admin password
once it's unlocked, go into terminal and:
mdls /
to see what the current setting is
then do the above command to set it to visible again (even if it's visible already)
then do the 'mdls /' again to verify it changed
then do a 'sync' to make sure the change is written out to disk
then maybe restart finder or reboot?

worth a shot. seems like a bug to me.
Click to expand...

yeah tried it. still didn't work :(
 
i've been having this problem since 10.4... no idea how to fix it. what i've done though until i find a fix is simply create an alias to the macintosh hd on my desktop so i can still access it from there.

what's funny... is for me, macintosh hd doesn't even show up on the sidebar...
 
from a Terminal window, type:

ls -lOd /

(That's lowercase ell, lowercase ess, space, minus, lowercase ell, capital oh, lowercase dee, space, forward slash)

You should get something like this:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t 32 root admin - 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /

Sounds like you might see something like this instead:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t@ 32 root admin hidden 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /

(note it says "hidden" instead of "-")

To fix this, type:

sudo chflags nohidden /

and provide your admin password. You won't get any output back from the command but the icon should now appear on your desktop, and the hidden flag should go away if you repeat the 'ls -lOd /' command.

And just in case you missed it above, you've got to be sure Hard disks are turned on in Finder General Preferences under "Show these items on the Desktop"
 
Try a search on these forums - someone posted an app called "replace_drive fix" which replaces the icon - I think it just automates what others have suggested to do at the terminal level.
 
dvd said:
from a Terminal window, type:

ls -lOd /

(That's lowercase ell, lowercase ess, space, minus, lowercase ell, capital oh, lowercase dee, space, forward slash)

You should get something like this:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t 32 root admin - 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /

Sounds like you might see something like this instead:
hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
drwxrwxr-t@ 32 root admin hidden 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /

(note it says "hidden" instead of "-")

To fix this, type:

sudo chflags nohidden /

and provide your admin password. You won't get any output back from the command but the icon should now appear on your desktop, and the hidden flag should go away if you repeat the 'ls -lOd /' command.

And just in case you missed it above, you've got to be sure Hard disks are turned on in Finder General Preferences under "Show these items on the Desktop"
Click to expand...

I LOVE YOU!!!
 
That command: "sudo chflags nohidden /" unfortunately didn't work for me. It still prompts "drwxrwxr-x@ 40 root admin hidden" when i type "ls -lOd /". Have you got any ideas what more can i do ?
 
thanks

thank you so much - this saved my day, dvd (i did try lots of things)

sudo chflags nohidden /
Click to expand...

i had an additional problem though: following a rather horrible update to leopard, a supporter set my password to "" (empty) ---so far this went without further problems but--- the command sudo chflags nohidden / was not accepted

so i set a new password for my account and after that it worked
thank you again
 
Still using Tiger .. these instructions fail

I am still using Tiger and unfortunately these instructions are not working.

First, there is no General Tab in the System Preferences.

Second the ls -lOd / command results in this: ls: illegal option -- O
usage: ls [-ABCFGHLPRSTWZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...].

Third, the sudo chflags nohidden / results in this: chflags: invalid flag: nohidden

The drive is not being recognized at all, but it is spinning. Thus, it is not being listed in the /Volumes command

Any ideas how I can get this drive seen and mounted so I can copy the data and then throw it away? Please?
 
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