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Hard Drive does not appear in Finder / Desktop

smwatson

smwatson

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 30, 2005
961
6
London, England
I started up my iMac (see sig) this morning as usual, and noticed that my hard drive ("Macintosh HD") did not appear on the desktop, or in Finder windows. I checked Finder preferences to see if the option to show it was checked, and it was. I tried restarting, logging out and back in, and god knows what else to try and solve the problem. However, it still hasnt appeared. Any help? (i know that it works as i was working on an image in photoshop at the time of noticing it, and i had several word documents open)
 
smwatson said:
I started up my iMac (see sig) this morning as usual, and noticed that my hard drive ("Macintosh HD") did not appear on the desktop, or in Finder windows. I checked Finder preferences to see if the option to show it was checked, and it was. I tried restarting, logging out and back in, and god knows what else to try and solve the problem. However, it still hasnt appeared. Any help? (i know that it works as i was working on an image in photoshop at the time of noticing it, and i had several word documents open)
Click to expand...

Find a file called com.apple.finder.plist or something similar, and put it in the the Trash.

Restart, and see.
 
Did it, nothing. Still doesnt appear. Iv verified it with Disk Utility, repaired permissions, and still not there. I also opened it (through quicksilver) and can open it in finder, and everything runs fine, its just that there is no icon :confused:
 
nope. I created new user (i only have one account normally) and the HD was not visible on desktop/sidebar. Im getting quite annoyed/scared
 
Is there any semblance of an icon? Maybe take a screenshot. I can't help but feel there's something simple we've overlooked. :)


Gokhan said:
just create a ıcon form the one ın the fınder prefs and place ıt on ur destop
Click to expand...


Dude, remember to cross the t and dot the i. :p
 
Ok so first one shows how the option is ticked for it to appear on desktop, but it doesnt.
Fullscreen_1.png


And second shows that option is ticked for it to appear in sidebar, but it doesnt.
Fullscreen_12.png


That help you?
 
Thanks, it helps a little bit. I just wanted to see if there was any sort of mark where the icon should be.

This is a bit weird since your computer is otherwise behaving pretty normally and you have full access to your drive. Plus, it's recognised in Disk Utility as mounted and fine. Weird.

Do you have any theme changers or system hacks installed? :)
 
Yeah, sorry, I've got no idea where to go from here. I guess reinstalling the latest combo update couldn't hurt. That'd be the PPC version of 10.4.6 for the iMac in your signature, I assume. :)

I don't claim it'll work, but there's a slim chance. Fingers crossed.
 
ok cheers, thanks for your help. Ill run the update this afternoon when i have time. Got an exam soon so ill do it after that.
Cheers
 
Exam went well, the update, not so much.

Update installed fine, and im now running 10.4.6 fine. Runs well. However, my Hard Drive still does NOT appear on desktop/finder. Infuriating to say the least :mad: At least everything works fine :p
 
Well, the fact that it's universal to your system (to me at least), points to something in /Library/Preferences/ as the culprit. What that is, I am not yet sure. We can try a shotgun approach in a little bit, but for the moment let me investigate more.

At the very least, I really highly doubt a reinstallation is necessary at this juncture.

Odd thought while I was at it... what if your HD icon IS showing up, it's just OFF the screen?
Have you tried changing screen resolution briefly and "Arrrange by" in the View options in the Finder?

Also.. ditch the caches in /Library/Caches/
 
yellow said:
Well, the fact that it's universal to your system (to me at least), points to something in /Library/Preferences/ as the culprit. What that is, I am not yet sure. We can try a shotgun approach in a little bit, but for the moment let me investigate more.

At the very least, I really highly doubt a reinstallation is necessary at this juncture.

Odd thought while I was at it... what if your HD icon IS showing up, it's just OFF the screen?
Have you tried changing screen resolution briefly and "Arrrange by" in the View options in the Finder?

Also.. ditch the caches in /Library/Caches/
Click to expand...

Thats what I was thinking maybe its actually just off your screen? Have you tried clicking 'clean up' in the view menu at top of screen? Its happened to me before I opened a load of files on my desktop once and accidentally dragged the HD off the screen. :rolleyes:

EDIT: Also would accidentally adding a 'period' to the start of the filename make it dissappear? i.e. hidden file? Just a thought!
 
Well firstly, it definetly isnt off the screen, iv cleaned up desktop, changed resolution etc and it doesnt appear.

Secondly, the name doesnt begin with "." as iv opened it via. Quicksilver as usual.

Also, in case it helps, if i click on my computer icon in sidebar, the HD doesnt appear there.
 
If you use Cocktail or some such app to "show all hidden files", does it show up?

(or)

Code: 
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

If so.. I might have another idea.
 
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