mamau08

Q: Rename Macintosh HD

I somehow changed the name of my Macintosh HD and it has many blanks and other letters and punctuation marks in the name.

 

I tried to rename the drive to Macintosh HD, but it says that I cannot use the name and that I should use less characters or punctuation marks.

Why is this message appearing? I have not entered a long name nor any punctuation marks.

 

Thank you for your support.

 

Markus

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Dec 17, 2014 1:57 PM

Close

Q: Rename Macintosh HD

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by david.lski,

    david.lski david.lski Dec 17, 2014 10:29 PM in response to mamau08
    Level 1 (85 points)
    Dec 17, 2014 10:29 PM in response to mamau08

    mamau08,

     

    In Disk Utility, what is the format of the Macintosh HD? It should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

    Do you have a Fusion Drive or SSD?

    Do you have a BootCamp Partition? Other OS installed?

     

    How are you renaming the drive? If you haven't already, attempt to right-click on the Macintosh HD and click 'Get Info', then underneath the Name & Extension header try and rename the Macintosh HD.

     

    If the error persists, open Disk Utility and Verify/Repair the Disk Permissions. [How To]

     

    If the error persists, open Disk Utility and Verify/Repair the Disk. [How To]

    Note: You cannot Repair the Macintosh HD while in OS X, you'll need to boot to Recovery Mode ( ⌘ + R ) at startup to Repair.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Dec 17, 2014 11:19 PM in response to mamau08
    Level 7 (32,056 points)
    iPad
    Dec 17, 2014 11:19 PM in response to mamau08

    Have you tried to rename it in the Finder: simply highlight the icon, press your return key (and see the name field change), type the desired name, hit the return key again, and that should be it.

  • by mamau08,

    mamau08 mamau08 Dec 18, 2014 12:58 PM in response to david.lski
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 18, 2014 12:58 PM in response to david.lski

    Ok, I checked the format of the Macintosh HD and it is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I am not using Fusion Drive or SSD and I have no BootCamp Partition or other OS installed.

     

    I tried to do the rename as described above and the same message appeared again.

     

    Then I opened the Disk Utility and did the Verify/Repair and it said that everything is ok.

     

    I saw that it says that I have read access only at the "Get Info" tab. So I changed the access rights for wheel and everyone to read & write (it took a while to adapt changes). Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to change the name of the drive. Then I wanted to do a restart and now my Macbook is not rebooting (I am waiting for about 30 minutes now). I see the apple icon and the bar, which is half full now but it is not proceeding anymore. What can I do to restart my Mac?

  • by david.lski,

    david.lski david.lski Dec 18, 2014 6:37 PM in response to mamau08
    Level 1 (85 points)
    Dec 18, 2014 6:37 PM in response to mamau08

    If it's not shutting down, just hold down power for 10 seconds to force a shutdown.

     

    In the 'Get Info' window, don't pay much attention to the permissions down at the bottom. Mine says I can only read as well on the Mac HD.

     

    If after the restart nothing has changed, I'd attempt to boot to Recovery Mode ( ⌘ + R at startup) and try to reinstall OS X. [How To]

    Before reinstalling, it's always advised to make a backup of the system.

     

    If after the reinstall nothing changes, I'd highly recommend just wiping the system if there's a backup and formatting the disk and changing the name in Disk Utility when you format the drive and migrating your data back over afterwards. [How To]

     

    After the erase and reinstall, make sure the problem has gone away first before migrating any data. You'll also want to use Migration Assistant after the reinstall rather than migrating first in case that brings the problem back.

  • by mamau08,

    mamau08 mamau08 Dec 19, 2014 11:37 AM in response to david.lski
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 19, 2014 11:37 AM in response to david.lski

    Ok now the thing is that my MacBook is not restarting at all.

    I tried to do a backup on an external drive in the recovery mode, but this also failed.

    Is there a chance to reset the user setting to the default values and/or to rename my boot drive (maybe in the single user mode?)

     

    The problem is that I do not have a backup and I need to secure my documents, prior being able to do a reinstallation.

     

    Is there a chance to repair my system without loosing my documents?

     

    By the way, is it possible to create a small linux partition and to rename the boot drive there, so that I can hopefully secure my documents?

     

    Thank you for your support!

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Dec 19, 2014 1:33 PM in response to mamau08
    Level 9 (71,450 points)
    iTunes
    Dec 19, 2014 1:33 PM in response to mamau08

    Can you restart from the Recovery Partition?

  • by mamau08,

    mamau08 mamau08 Dec 20, 2014 4:59 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 20, 2014 4:59 AM in response to Eric Root

    No, it is not possible to restart my mac