Can't get external hard disk icons to appear on iMac desk top

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Level 1

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Can't get external hard disk icons to appear on iMac desk top

Hi guys,

I hope someone can help me. I have OS X Lion on my iMac. I noticed that a few days after installing it, my external hard disk icons and Macintosh HD icons disappeared from the desktop. I tried going to Finder- Preferences- Show these items on desktop and checked the appropriate boxes but this only restored the Macintosh HD icon to the desktop. Checking the "External disks" box makes no difference. When I open Finder I can see the external hard disks in the sidebar so I don't think there is a problem with the disks. Can anyone advise me on how to restore the external hard disk icons to the desktop?

Thanks a million

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Nov 19, 2011 11:28 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,624 points

Nov 19, 2011 11:35 AM in response to bonefixer

I'm not sure why they're not showing but try doing a couple of troubleshooting steps. Restart the machine in the Restore Partition, when you hear the startup tone hold down the Option key and choose the Restore Partition. Then open Disk Utilities and Repair Disk Permisssions on your internal HD at least 2x, while you are in DU it wouldnt hurt to run Repair Disk, again 2x. Then restart the computer in Safe Mode to clear some caches and finally restart normally and check.

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