I can't hide hidden files.

That's what I thought. You did not turn off the hidden files diplay in the finder because is says AppleShowAllFiles is TRUE. So do it again and this time verify it. In terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 0

killall -9 Finder

To verify check the value again (although hopefully the invisibles are gone after the killall).

defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

In the Finder do a Get Info on...

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

Is it Locked? What Rights does it show for you?

10.7.x cant write files...

Reboot up to recovery partition,

Restart holding down Option or alt key+r key

Choose mac utilities, just utilities, choose Terminal.

inside Terminal type this...

resetpassword (no spaces), hit enter, choose, mac hd, select affected account...

Reset home folder permissions and acls.

The hidden files are still there. Apple is telling me I need to erase the drive. This seems drastic.

Apple always takes the easy way out.

Not sure why you cannot write to it. Probably explains why you have been having so much trouble turning this thing off.

But screw it. If it wants to play those "games" do this from terminal:

sudo rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

killall -9 Finder

Because of the sudo you will be prompted for you admin password. It won't be echoed when you type it. Hit return after entering it.

The rm is deleting the entire plist. The finder relaunch should create a clean one again. Hopefully if you again do,

defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

you should get a "does not exist" error message for AppleShowAllFiles.

Just type your password & hit Enter, it is not reflected/echoed to the screen for safety reasons. 🙂

If you're certain your typing is correct then yes proceed. It looks right from here. 🙂

Now try the hidden command again & force quit the Finder.

Don't worry about all the ritualistic stuff sudo may spew out. I had said the admin password would not be echoed. Just type it even if you don't see anything showing on the screen and hit return. That rm dshould have deleted the plist. If it didn't something else is going on here. So this time post all the terminal lines from the following set of commands:

ls -ld ~/Library/Preferences

ls -la ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

sudo rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

ls -la ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

defaults readcom.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

killall -9 Finder

defaults readcom.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

ls -la ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

Post the output to all these commands.

To find out if it's system wide or user specific, try this...

Open System Preferences>Accounts, unlock the lock, click on the little plus icon, make a new admin account, log out & into the new account.

Do hidden files show in the new account?

dwfpdx wrote:

I think that might have worked-now i can't see my hard drive icons on the desktop?

Ok, not sure why it didn't work earlier since nothing was done differently this last time other then keeping a close eye on the relevant file and folder.

This coudn't be system wide since it is a plist local to an account. But speaking of accounts, did you really name your account "admin"? 😮 That's what it looks like and it's somewhat confusing looking at it.