Two HD icons appear but only have one unpartitioned drive

[leftbanke7]

My mother was repairing the permissions of the eMac she uses at work when she got the image of two HDs (One being Mac HD the other "Maxtor 2F040LO). I know that the drive was never partitioned. About a month ago, the computer was taken by the Feds due to some drama with a consigner that was selling "stolen" merchandise in her shop unknown to them. I don't think that would have anything to do with it but my mother did comment that her computer was running a bit differently after she got it back and some of the things in her system preferences were fiddled with. Again, don't think this has anything to do with it but you never know and it never hurts to know all the information with a computer.

Any ideas? Comments? Suggestions?

 

[jimsowden]

When you repair premissions you mount the physical drive "Maxtor BlaBlaBla" and also the single partition that mac os x has made for the operating system "Macintosh HD". I'm surprised you knew how to repair premissions and had never done it.

 

[rainman::|:|]

When you repair premissions you mount the physical drive "Maxtor BlaBlaBla" and also the single partition that mac os x has made for the operating system "Macintosh HD". I'm surprised you knew how to repair premissions and had never done it.

What?

I've never had my drive mount physically (in addition to the single partition) when repairing permissions...

But yes, technically an unpartitioned drive is actually a single partition, once you've formatted it. My advice, if the two drives continue to show up, would be to reformat the drive (obviously you'll have to back data up first) and dump everything back on again... Or ignore it, if it doesn't cause any problems.

It's possible that some sort of utility that was used to scan the whole drive screwed up whatever OS X uses to keep these things straight... but one would hope it would have shown up immediately, not upon repairing permissions.

paul

 

[johnnowak]

I'd back up and reformat anyway. Who knows what those people did to your computer... the thing could dive at any moment.

 

[jimsowden]

What?

I've never had my drive mount physically (in addition to the single partition) when repairing permissions...

paul

If you have repaired premissions, then you have. The Physical Drive appears and the partition is subcategorized to it. Thats how it works. See example below.

 

[EminenceGrise]

If you have repaired premissions, then you have. The Physical Drive appears and the partition is subcategorized to it. Thats how it works. See example below.

That's not 'mounting' the physical drive. All that's showing you is that the already mounted 'Macintosh HD' partition (every physical drive has to have at least one partition to be usable - the partition can, of course span the entire drive) is located on the physical 'Maxtor XXXX' device. If you had more than one partition on that drive, they would be listed under the same 'Maxtor' entry.

If the extra drive is only showing up in Disk Utility, that's OK as it's the expected behavior. I took the original post to mean it started showing up on the desktop though, in which case that probably indicates a problem.

I agree with Mr. paulwhannel - it may be best to back up and reformat. I wouldn't trust the feds to not have done something to it in the course of their investigation, especially if it's been "running a bit differently". That's not to say anything nefarious is going on, just simply that they might not have been too careful about leaving things in the best working order when they were done. At least with a re-install, you'd be sure you had a known good install - right now it's a bit of an unknown, and may be more trouble than it's worth dealing with and wondering about it...

 

[jimsowden]

There is nothing wrong! I need to take command of this post. All he saw was the physical drive MOUNTED in addition to the Macintosh HD partition in the Disk Utility. Simply this and nothing more. Now will some mod please close this? This sh*t is over.

Edit: I assume you take mount to be it showing up on the desktop. It is always mounted because the system is accessing information off of it, the drives on the desktop are only partitions.

 

[rainman::|:|]

Wow, a newbie i actually like, thank you EminenceGrise

So the general consensus is, format the drive. At worst, you've caused yourself the trouble of backing up the data. But that should take care of any defects in the header structure that may be causing this problem.

If that doesn't work, you're perhaps SOL. The government is notorious for damaging homes, cars and computers during searches, and they're not liable for a penny of it. Learned that the hard way, best friend's car was torn apart in a traffic stop, and he had to pay to have it recarpeted after.

edit: jimsowden, please stop giving advice. If he said "mounted", we have to assume he meant actually mounted, rather than your convoluted definition of "mounted" simply appearing in Disk Utility. A disk that simply shows up in Disk Utility is not necessarily mounted! Quit saying it as such.

paul