Remote disc icon?

Question

Level 1

49 points

Remote disc icon?

Hi,

Just got one of the new Mac minis and it's a cracking wee machine. One small question, however. I re-installed OS X and under devices as well as under Computer I have a cd icon saying 'Remote Disc'. I understand that this is for installing OS X across a network or sharing a disc but why is the icon there? Shouldn't it be there only if I have cd or dvd sharing on?

This is on a clean install (10.5.6) nothing changed, wireless connection. I've got a unibody Macbook and a Power Mac all running Leopard and none of them seem to show the icon.

Apologies for the really dumb questions but gets me wondering why it's there by default.

Cheers guys!

Message was edited by: dunes

Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on May 10, 2009 9:37 AM

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Answer 1

Cat-lady

Level 1

14 points

Jan 26, 2017 9:23 AM in response to dunes

I have this problem also. Did anyone figure how to get rid of it? I have an desktop mac with sierra installed and I have spend half the day trying to remove a CD from an external drive. I thought this Remote Drive in Finder was my external drive as nothing else was displaying.

Only managed to remove my CD from the external drive by restarting my computer then suddenly my external drive appeared in finder but it wasn't there before.

Now I've unplugged my external drive as it's clearly faulty but the Remove Drive is still there so I know know it's totally unrelated.

I don't know what it is for though because I don't have any other external drives.

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Answer 2

Dah•veed

Level 9

65,461 points

May 31, 2009 8:22 AM in response to dunes

That particular icon allows you to see which computers on your network have drives available to share. If there were computers on the same network that had allowed disk sharing, and they were online, when you highlight that icon a list of them would show. If you high light a particular computer it sets up the ability for asking permission to use their drive.

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Answer 3

Jul 13, 2009 4:11 PM in response to dunes

dunes,

I have the same experience with my new Mac Mini.

None of my computers have DVD/CD sharing turned on.

Even if I turn on DVD/CD sharing on any my computers, none of the other computers show a Remote Disc in the sidebar.
This Remote Disc has never showed up on any of my computers until I got this new Mini.

There doesn't seem to be much info on DVD/CD sharing that I can find. It doesn't appear that anyone is using this feature except for owners of the MacBook Air.

At this point, I would just like to get rid of this Remote Disc icon and get back to normal.
I have found 3rd party documents on how to turn this feature on for non MacBook Air users, but nothing to turn it off.

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Answer 4

Jul 14, 2009 8:20 AM in response to Joseph Kriz

I've noticed this too. You can remove the Remote Disk icon from the sidebar by simply dragging it out. The icon will still be present in the top level of the finder under computer though.

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Answer 5

Jul 30, 2009 9:09 AM in response to dunes

I'm having this problem too, on a Mac mini. A bug in the OS that just effects certain hardware, I guess. Annoying.

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Answer 6

Jul 30, 2009 6:41 PM in response to anothersmurf

Yeah, I like to get rid of it permanently but don't know which file it is.

I know I can drag it from the sidebar but it is not gone from the System.

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Answer 7

XJ-linux

Level 1

30 points

Aug 5, 2009 5:40 PM in response to Joseph Kriz

Glad I found this thread. I've never seen the "Remote Disk" icon on any of my MacBooks or MacBook Pros before. Suddenly, with this 2009 Mac Mini, the Remote Disk is present only in the Mini's Finder. Weird.

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Answer 8

kemuel

Level 1

0 points

Aug 13, 2009 3:00 AM in response to dunes

Same problem here - I just bought a new Mac mini and recieved it three days ago.
It has this remote disc icon in the finder aswell..
It is not supposed to be there.. only when Remote disc is enabled and another computer is sharing its drive.. I think it must be a bug in the Mac mini installation.
I updated to 10.5.8 in hope that it would solve the problem but it did not..

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Answer 9

iBrian

Level 4

1,432 points

Aug 13, 2009 4:29 AM in response to kemuel

same thing here - new macmini

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Answer 10

kemuel

Level 1

0 points

Aug 13, 2009 5:58 AM in response to dunes

I just got off the phone with applecare support.
It IS an error, the Remote Disc icon is not supposed to be there. It is only meant to be installed on the macbook air. It seems like apple by mistake included it on the Mac mini install DVD's.

Applecare support are sending new install discs to me. When I get them I will reinstall the system and see if it solved the issue. And then return here to tell.

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Answer 11

XJ-linux

Level 1

30 points

Aug 13, 2009 10:16 AM in response to kemuel

I just bought a refurbished MBA and the disk is there (like it is on the 2009 Mini). I used the remote disk on both the Mini and the MBA for the heck of it. It work fine on both. I'm keeping the Mini as is in case the Superdrive ever poops out on me.
-Dave

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Answer 12

UNR3AL

Level 1

0 points

Dec 6, 2009 1:23 AM in response to dunes

I also got a new Mac mini and it has the same thing. I don't think it's an error though. My guess is that since they introduced the Mac mini server without the optical drive they use the standard on both of them. Kind of annoying, but you can remove it from the Finder sidebar. I don't really see they point of having it there on any machine wether it has optical or not if no other computers have it enabled.

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Answer 13

colli

Level 1

0 points

Dec 7, 2009 1:55 PM in response to dunes

I had this problem, too. Try dragging the symbol off the finder window. It will disappear with a "poof" 🙂

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Answer 14

Mar 10, 2010 5:28 PM in response to dunes

I too have the same issue with brand new 09 Mac Mini. Never had it with MBP or iMacs. I think we can conclude this issue is specific to minis. I just dragged it off my sidebar. No more worries.

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Answer 15

Mar 11, 2010 10:08 AM in response to billkroll

I got this too, but it only recently appeared. I got my Mini in January and it shows up now?? maybe a security fix disabled something??

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