can't eject ghost external disk icons on desktop

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Level 1

23 points

can't eject ghost external disk icons on desktop

Hi all,
I work sometimes in a place with a wireless network, where there are several different drives available. Sometimes i connect to one of them. Usually, not always, several more appear, in the network, and then two more appear on the desktop, as ghosts. I did not put them there, and i can't eject them. apl-E does simply nothing, and dragging to the trash brings an option to force-eject, which i do, and that also does nothing. They are still there.
They are called 'home' and 'net' btw.
i can double-click them and a window opens, with no files in it.
get info in the finder tells me that they are Kind: Volume, and Server: file://localhost/home/, capacity: zero, available: zero, used: zero.

tried terminal, but can't seem to get at these disks or files. i get in a loop from the root dir, volumes dir, which then shows again root dir.....
No dir called localhost that i can find. scuse my ignorance there, was never good with unix.

thanks for any help, suggestions,
mk

macbook pro intel, 2.4ghz, 4gb ram, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Nov 6, 2009 7:21 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Nov 6, 2009 12:31 PM in response to pulot pulot1

home and net are normal, but usually hidden. Ignore them. Restart should clear them.

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Answer 2

pulot pulot1 Author

Level 1

23 points

Nov 8, 2009 5:05 AM in response to baltwo

aaaaah, got it. now i know: i use Tinkertool to set various prefs usually hidden. one is show hidden files, that was turned on. i turned it off, relaunched finder, now they are gone.
ok, nothing to worry about.
thanks baltwo!

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Nov 8, 2009 12:28 PM in response to pulot pulot1

Thanks for the feedback. Good computing.

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Answer 4

mstrammd

Level 1

10 points

Nov 19, 2009 4:16 AM in response to pulot pulot1

I am having an issue that is similar. After installing a set of drivers on my MacBook Pro (circa late 2008 model--first unibody model) for an Apiotek eSATA express card, I noted the appearance of the "shared" drive icons in Time Machine under the system preferences setting where you select which drive you want to use for backups. When I go to select the drive, I see not only my Time Capsules and external drives, but I also have these two "drives" with the blue icon and the three stick figures holding hands. They are called "Home" ("on localhost") and "Net" ("on localhost"). If I hover my mouse pointer over them it shows the path as, "File://localhost/Home" and "File://localhost/net", respectively. I cannot seem to get rid of these drives. They cannot be used to backup with Time Machine. I am fairly sure they are related to the drivers I installed. The installation was very buggy with the Silicon Image drivers that came with the eSATA card from Other World Computing. I uninstalled these drivers, but that did not fix the issue. Anybody out there with a similar experience? Anybody know how to get rid of these icons?

Message was edited by: mstrammd

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Answer 5

mstrammd

Level 1

10 points

Nov 19, 2009 4:31 AM in response to mstrammd

I launched Tinker Tool and used it to make the Finder hidden folders appear and these very same icons appeared on my desktop. Is there a way to make them invisible again in the Time Machine "select drive" window? For some reason Time Machine now sees these folders that should be hidden as drives for backup. I spoke to a "Wireless Media Specialist" at Apple Care a few days ago and he had no idea why this happened or how to get rid of it. I'm pretty sure it happened after installing the drivers for the eSATA express card. Uninstalling them didn't correct the issue.

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Answer 6

mstrammd

Level 1

10 points

Nov 20, 2009 4:17 AM in response to mstrammd

Well, I have now wiped my HDD and reinstalled everything...again. This time I did not install the Silicon Image eSATA driver. Everything went fine and 6 hours later I had nearly everything back on my MBP and no trace of the Net and Home 'drives' in my Time Machine setup 'choose backup disk'. The last app to be installed was EyeTV (most recent version for SL). After installing that program I checked the TM setup in Preferences and much to my dismay, the Net and Home folders were back:( Ughhh!!! These two folders themselves are not such a big issue. I could ignore them if it wasn't for the fact that when they are present, I loose the ability to remotely access my Time Capsules via MobileMe.

Anybody out there with suggestions?

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