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Dannymac22 Author

Level 1

57 points

changing the name of a disk volume

OK, I think I've asked this before, in several forums, but I've NEVER gotten an adequate answer. I have several disks mounted on my Monterey system, and frequently (but not always), I am TOTALLY UNABLE to rename them. That is, normally you click on the disk volume icon, and then on the icon name. The name gets a light blue background, and you can type a new name. Just like for files and folders. I do a monthly backup and I like to rename that disk volume with the date of that backup. Today, I am UNABLE to do that on my backup disk. I click on its icon name, and then the label, and the label background doesn't turn light blue, and you can't enter a new name. Duh, what's going on??? So I throw up my hands and in Disk Utility I erase the volume, rename it as desired, and redo the backup. Now I can rename the volume (which no longer needs to be renamed) by clicking on the icon.

If I have a disk volume that refuses to be renamed, how do I do so, without erasing it???

iMac, OS X 10.11

Posted on Jun 18, 2023 6:22 AM

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Dannymac22 Author

Level 1

57 points

Posted on Jun 19, 2023 6:59 AM

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.

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changing the name of a disk volume

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