changing the name of a disk volume

OK, I think I have the answer. I contacted Apple Support, and they escalated me to a really smart person. We found that the disk volumes that I could not change the names on were bootable backups (these produced by SuperDuper, as it turns out). It seems that bootable backups are formatted somewhat differently, and since they are backups, they specifically don't allow any changes to be made on them. If in Disk Utility you cntl-click on a volume you'll see a volume "info" pane (via Get Info). One of the items in that pane is "Writable", which can be "yes" or "no". Bootable backups are all "no". Non-bootable volumes are all "yes".

The references here to Time Machine pertain somewhat. You can't change that name because it is, in some sense, a bootable backup.

So that's the answer. Bootable backups are protected against ALL changes, including name changes. What is a little strange is the icon for my internal disk DOES allow name changes, but maybe that's because I have booted to it and it is open. If I boot to one of my bootable backups, I suspect I'd be able to change it's name then.

My problem isn't with Disk Utilities. It's with the disk volume icon, and renaming it. If there is something specific you want to know about the disk in Disk Utilities, just ask. It ought to be clear what I'm talking about.

That's one of my disk volume icons. Let's say I want to change the name from "my disk" to "your disk". In many cases, it simply won't let me. In this case, I can. I click on the icon, the name gets highlighted in light blue

and I can edit that name.

Presto.

Many times, I simply can't get the name to be highlighted with a blue background, and I can't edit it.

Well, the answers that I'm getting don't seem to really bear on my problem, so I thought I'd dial down a notch. Granted, you shouldn't need these screen shots to figure out what I'm talking about, but I'm afraid some seem to.

Well, to the extent information is being requested, then please specify the specific information you want. A requests for a screen shot of Disk Utility is not at all specific. What exactly are you looking for in that? What does Disk Utility report that might even bear on the issue? When I get non-specific request for information, it's like hands getting thrown up in the air. Right now, I'm hearing a big "I don't have a clue."

Don't appreciate you sharing my screen without my permission. Do you do that routinely? Presumably you had access to that because Apple Support was already sharing my screen. Not that the information you got with my Disk Utility actually allowed you to make any progress on my issue! You got all kinds of info you didn't need.

system is Read & Write

wheel is Read only

everyone is Read only

But if I try to change, "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission."

Might be possible with diskutil as superuser, however.

Nope. Same thing as Administrator. "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission."

It's easy to rename a startup drive which is what SuperDuper creates? Not that I can see, and not that you've told me how.

BTW, su diskutil rename "disk1" "disk2" also doesn't work.

That’s what I was stating. SupwrDuper doesn’t really produce a correct clone.

Um, what? I'e been using it for decades and I've never seen any fault in SuperDuper. Reference? Also, the correctness of the clone doesn't obviously have anything to do with whether you can rename it.