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My Hard Drive Icon is GONE!

The icon for my hard drive is disappeared off my desktop and for the life of me can't figure out how to get it back!! If I don't have an alias for something on my desktop I can't get to it because I can't get into my hard drive.

G4, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Oct 24, 2007 1:51 PM

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Posted on Oct 24, 2007 4:02 PM

Welcome To  Discussions Plasticmoldsman!

From the Finder contextual menu, on the Finder Menu Bar, select Preferences.
In the window that opens, click on General.
Under Show these items on the Desktop:, make sure that Hard disks is checked.

ali b
23 replies

Oct 25, 2007 7:43 AM in response to Plasticmoldsman

Plasticmoldsman,

Exactly which model Mac G4 is it?
What is the Processor speed?
What size is the Hard Drive, and how much space is available?
How much RAM is installed, and is it original or added?
What peripherals do you have connected? A keyboard, mouse, printer, external drive or modem, router, etc?

What happened between the last time the Mac functioned properly, and when it didn't?
Have you made any changes, like upgrading the system, updated or installed any applications or programs, etc?

Have there been any unusual occurences, like freezes, crashes, power outages, etc?

Are you able to startup from the system install disc, to run Repair Disk?
Have you run Repair Permissions?
Is the Mac shutdown overnight, or does it run 24/7?
Have you ever run any routine Maintenance procedures?

Are you able to access anything from the Dock?
If you do a Find for Applications, does it find the Applications folder?
Do you have the system backed up?

Please advise, if you need instructions, to perform any of these procedures.

ali b

Oct 25, 2007 10:44 AM in response to ali brown

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: Power Mac G4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.2)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.6.0f1

I am running OS X 1.3.9

2GB ram added new ram a year or so ago

80G hard drive about 70 used.

keyboard, wireless mouse, speakers, usb cable for camera
nothing new in last 2 years

hooked to a pc network at work

I noticed it was gone I think on monday. It seems to work perfectly, except the find feature. If I search with "home" selected instead of everywhere or a specific drive it will find some stuff.

No wierd occurences that I can think of. Novell Groupwise locks up somtimes on the network and I have to restart.

I ran repair disk from install disk it found a couple things and I ran it until it say everything was fine.
I ran repair permissions.
I ran macjanitor. I just did this yesteday. What program do you reccomend?
I leave it on all the time, usually shutting down on weekends.

Dock works fine.
won't find applications folder. If I have an alias for anything on my desktop or dock, it will run it just fine.

I have most of my stuff backed up on network server but I have tons of pictures and graphics that would overload their system.

I ordered a external hard drive and LEOPARD today. I plan to dump everything I can and format my main drive when it all comes in and install Leopard. My system is about 4 and a hlf years old so I know there has to be a bunch of crap built up somewhere.

Does that sound like a good plan?

Your help is GREATLY APPRECIATED. I have worked on MACs for about 20 years and haven't run into anything like this. I do advertising at a company and so of course I am a lone machead in a PC world so our IT guys just look at me and shake their heads.

Oct 25, 2007 11:07 AM in response to Plasticmoldsman

You're Welcome Plastcmoldsman!

Do you have the system backed up? If not I suggest that you create a backup ASAP!
And until you resolve this issue, I also suggest that you do not use the Mac, for any other purpose.

Have you run the Apple Hardware Test?

"80G hard drive about 70 used."

The HD is dangerously low on available space. Which can lead to directory corruption, and possible loss of data.
A general consensus, depending on how the Mac OS X system is used, is to have at least 10%, to as much as 20%, of the total HD capacity, available at all times.

More info here Problems From Insufficient .... Free Hard Disk Space, authored by Dr Smoke.

Also review this document Freeing Space On Your Mac OS X Startup Disk, authored by Dr Smole.

"...but I have tons of pictures and graphics that would overload their system."
If you have access to another Firewire enabled Mac, you could attempt to retrieve that data, using Firewire Target Disk Mode.

And Thank You, for extending the courtesy, of awarding User uploaded file User uploaded file in  Discussions, as this is not a requirement, nor mandatory, but is much appreciated!

ali b

Oct 25, 2007 11:19 AM in response to ali brown

And Thank You, for extending the courtesy, of awarding in  Discussions, as this is not a requirement, nor mandatory, but is much appreciated!

I figured you should get something out of your knowledge and help.

Here's something I just discovered. In finder in the Go Menu I can click on aplications and they are all there. If I click on "Computer" all that comes up is "network" I'm thinking the HD should be there.

Oct 25, 2007 11:49 AM in response to Plasticmoldsman

You're Welcome Plasticmoldsman!

After you have opened the Applications folder, is the Macintosh HD in the Sidebar?
If so, are you able to click on it to open it?

If not, while the Applications finder window is open, from the Finder View contextual menu, select Customize Toolbar....
Drag the Path tab to the Toolbar.

Once that is in place, click on it.
Is the path Computer > Macintosh HD > Applications?
If so, select Macintosh HD.

Also, do a Find (Command + F keys), for .Macintosh HD.
Note the "." dot.

This is all assuming that you did not rename the Macintosh HD.

"I figured you should get something out of your knowledge and help."
That's a generous sentiment, and unfortunately, at times it seems, that you are in the minority, of members who share it!

ali b

Oct 28, 2007 3:27 AM in response to ali brown

Hi all,

I just had the same problem yesterday after installing OSX 10.5 Leopard. I found (after 1 hour trying to discover whats going on) that my "Macintosh HD" icon changed its attributes itself to invisible. What I did to solve it, without installing Mac Developer Tools (don´t know how to use it) was download and install *Super Get Info* a program from Bare Bones Software http://www.barebones.com/products/super/index.shtml . With it, you can change the "Macintosh HD" file attributes on "info" tab deselecting "invisible" check box to visible. And there it is again!

I hope it can help u2...

KaiSg

Oct 28, 2007 4:36 PM in response to KaiSg

KaiSg and company...

I had the same issue with leopard and found this post. KaiSg, I don't know what I would have done without finding your post... THANK YOU!!! especially since you took the time to come up here and post it after you solved your own problem.

I downloaded the utility you recommended and solved it with in seconds. strangely enough, i had two ⚠ hard drives... twins of the one that went missing. but a restart seems to have resolve it, and i'm back to status quo.

any idea what may have caused this issue? i've never seen it before...

thanks again!

Oct 29, 2007 2:04 AM in response to turgemanster

Hi all again,

First of all thx Turgemanster for your nice words I just wanna help.

I really don´t know what´s causing this issue but got bad news, *it still there*. Every hour or every restart the "alive HD icon" still disappears and have to fix it with the "solution" I found, again and again... And actually don´t know how to maintain it "visible" constantly. So, may be we have to wait some time until Apple or somebody solves it...

Thank you and regards.


KaiSg

Oct 29, 2007 3:47 PM in response to KaiSg

I downloaded a demo of super info and my HD was on invisible. I can't even find that checkbox anywhere else but in super info. I opened my HD and everything looks fine.........we'll see.
Thanks a bunch!!!!!

I've rebooted and It is now on my desktop. In preferences when I deslect/select it disappeard and appears like it should. I made a coupe aliases, so if it disappears again it might not take the aliases with it.

Message was edited by: Plasticmoldsman

Oct 31, 2007 9:12 AM in response to Plasticmoldsman

I actually purchaces the Super Get Info app but couldn't figure it out. So I followed the instructions over at http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html and that seemed to work just fine. He said

Launch ScriptEditor and copy and paste this into the script window:
tell application "System Events"
set visible of disk "NameofDisk" to true
end tell
tell application "Finder" to quit
delay 1
tell application "Finder" to launch
Replace NameofDisk with the actual name of your disk, hit the Compile icon to make sure the script didn't acquire any errors, and then hit run. This should set the visible attribute back to visible and quit and relaunch the Finder, thus making the change available.

Hope this helps somebody!

Nov 1, 2007 9:05 AM in response to elvtechie

Hi. I installed leopard recently and I have been having the exact same problems. I tried to applescript and all the other stuff at the pinkmutant article on invisibility.

I even tried an Archive and Install. While those applescripts and terminal commands will bring the icon back temporarily, when I restart or relaunch the finder, it goes back to being invisible.

Any ideas?

Nov 3, 2007 9:14 AM in response to absolutazn87

Hi. I seem to be having the same problems as the rest of you. After installing Leopard (upgrade from Tiger), my hard drive icon keeps disappearing (from the desktop and "My devices" in the Finder). I keep setting it to "visible" using AppleScript, but short while later it's gone again. I can still access my files... just not as directly.

I use a MacBook Intel Core Duo, 2GHz, 1.25Gb RAM and have 4.4Gb of 55.6Gb of free disk space (not much free space I know, but I can't help that at the moment).

I haven't found much about this on the internet (apart from this site obviously) but thought I should add my experience to the rest of yours, so hopefully it will be fixed shortly, although if any of you come across a long time fix, I'd love to know.

My Hard Drive Icon is GONE!

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