Backup disk icon on desktop after upgrading to Catalina.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/disk-utility/dskua9e6a110/mac

hi d_devries, i think i have your solution.

you need to go to: Apple Menu>Finder>Preferences, once there, choose "General" tab

uncheck "Hard disks" and "External disks"

have fun!

Thanks fro the reply d_devries,

Have you ever turned on Time machine? If so, what could have happened, is the internal drive was set as the Time Machine backup drive.

Also, if you start to safe mode, do you continue to see the extra drive?

How to use Safe Mode on your Mac

Cheers!

hello again,

i understand your concern about wasted space being used by "backup". you say when you open it, it's empty. why it is showing up as a second separate drive, i'm guessing it has something to go with apple's decision to split the drive into two partitions. one is READ ONLY, while "HD Data" is read write. if your internal drive is only 499GB, then "Backup" is not using any space. if you have a 1TB drive then "Backup" IS using 481.41GB and "Macintosh HD" is also using 481.41GB.

if you are unsure of your disk size then AppleMenu>About This Mac then click "System Report"

click on "storage" in the sidebar. if you have 499GB then "Backup" is empty. if you have 1TB then "Backup" is wasting space and you need additional help.

Hello d_devries,

Thanks for choosing the Apple Support Communities. If we understand correctly, you are seeing what appear to be a disk drive on your Mac after updating. We can understand why you'd reach out for some clarification.

Try disconnecting any external drives you have connected, and see if that removes it.

Also, when you pull it towards the trash, do you see an eject symbol, or does it simply move to trash?

Cheers!

you had me confused so i took a better look at one of your earlier post. here's what i finally saw:

"Macintosh" has 480.6 GB on it. "Backup" only has 897KB. that's practically nothing. also, in your screen grab of Disk Utility, Backup appears to be its own partition.

i won't pretend to know what it is, but it's less than 1MB of stuff. i would not worry about 1MB out of 500GB. i would just leave well enough alone until you hear from someone more knowledgeable than me.

hello again,

you could enter Disk Utility and choose the partition tab and remove the partition. there are three questions i would need to ask someone first though.

1. can you remove a partition without losing everything else (the other volumes) that is on that shared drive?
2. what EXACTLY is that 1MB of stuff?
3. will deleting that 1MB adversly affect the OS?

i just noticed, you have VERY LITTLE storage space left.

i would recommend moving some stuff to external storage (external HDD or the cloud) to free up some space on your internal drive

why do you want the Macintosh HD on your desktop? unchecking "Hard Drives" in finder preferences will take the icons off your desktop. i thought that was part of what you were asking. :)

i should have been a little more clear.

"take your backup disk" - i'm referring to an actual external drive

(with that pesky "Backup") - this is what we want to get rid of

i just thought my wording was misleading.