emolas
Level 1 (5 points)

Q: Hard drive volume appears in sidebar Favorites when new disk mounts

Hard drive on my 17” MacBook Pro Quad Core i7 (2.5 GHz, 8GB SDRAM OS 10.8.2) is partitioned into 4 volumes; I'll call them A-Mountain Lion startup drive, B-Personal, C-Work, D-minimal clean Mt. Lion for emergencies. Problem relates to my regular boot drive.

 

I have Finder sidebars set to show 8 or 10 folders in the "Favorites" section and have ticked all boxes in the "Devices" section. Most of the time I have no external disks, CDs, etc., connected to the MBP, so the Devices section generally shows my computer and the four partitions. So far, so good.

 

Lately, every time an external volume is mounted and every time a disk image is mounted, the Personal volume (B) of my internal drive, which is already showing under Devices, also pops up in the Favorites section of the sidebar. I remove it from the Favorites, but the next time an external disk or a disk image mounts, there it is again. It's always volume B, never A, C, or D.

 

I have tried everything I can think of to cure this odd behavior: Used Disk Utility (verify all disks/volumes; repair volumes; repair permissions; etc.), though nothing seemed wrong. I've run Disk Warrior on all volumes. I cleaned out everything possible on the startup drive (A) with the latest version of Onyx. I've repeatedly trashed the plists I could identify in my user Library that had "sidebar" or "finder" in their names. I've logged in and out; started and restarted; started with shift key down. Still, every time a new volume or disk mounts, up pops this extra volume B among the Favorites (where it shouldn't be). I checked and unchecked various combinations of sidebar items in Finder Preferences. I've Forced Quit the Finder. It doesn't matter whether all, some, or no devices are checked; when a new disk mounts, there's the extra volume B again.

 

I have only two other clues to add. (1) I created a new temporary user account on my startup drive (volume A), and this behavior did NOT occur in the new account. (2) This same behavior had arisen once before, a couple of months ago. I went through similar blind attempts to cure it then, but at some point I must have done something right because I it got fixed. For the life of me, I can't remember which of all the things I tried did the trick.

 

Many thanks to anyone who can shed light on this annoying behavior.

MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)

Posted on Dec 7, 2012 3:31 PM

by emolas,Solvedanswer
emolas emolas
Level 1 (5 points)
A:

One of the other persons with this problem seems to have found the solution. See this thread. I tested the solution given and so far it is working. Turns out it was necessary to delete ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder as well as the finder and sidebar plists in ~/Library/Preferences, empty trash, log out, then log back in. What caused this anomaly to happen in the first place is still a mystery.

Posted on Jan 1, 2013 1:27 PM

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emolas

Q: Hard drive volume appears in sidebar Favorites when new disk mounts

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  • by emolas,

    emolas emolas Dec 29, 2012 2:23 PM in response to emolas
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 29, 2012 2:23 PM in response to emolas

    I can add a bit to my earlier description. I had said the problem did not occur in a new user account. Well, after using the new account for a while, it showed up. Eventually I erased the startup volume and installed Mountain Lion (plus updates to 10.8.2) fresh. I used migration assistant to transfer only my old user, pared down applications, and network settings -- no preferences, application support stuff. The old user carried over the problem. But I immediately created a new user and have been working from it for the past two weeks, very gradually opening apps, adjusting settings, etc., and testing for the anomaly at each change. In some cases I did move preferences from a backup clone, but was always careful to test after each addition. All was well for a week, until one morning I noticed the data partition had appeared in sidebar Favorites. So I'm back to where I was. I had been documenting each change or introduction I made. The only things my notes said from the day before the sidebar anomaly appeared was launching and struggling to activate QuarkXPress 9.3, and copying over my old prefs and settings for TextWrangler. I completely removed every trace of QXP, but the problem remained. (I did not remove TextWrangler because I just can't believe it could be the culprit -- but could it?)

     

    I also noticed a similar (though maybe not identical) problem posted in another thread <https://discussions.apple.com/message/20591050#20591050>, but so far no answers there either.

  • by emolas,

    emolas emolas Dec 30, 2012 3:40 PM in response to emolas
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 30, 2012 3:40 PM in response to emolas

    So it seems that at least two other people running Mountain Lion have a problem with a partition of an internal disk appearing in the Favorites section of the sidebar, where volumes should not appear. One was posted a few months ago, the other thread was started a little after this thread. The September poster provides supporting details that are quite similar to my situation. So far, no solution, nor even a reason, has been given for this anomaly.

     

    As I recently replied in one of the other threads, the question is not really how to remove this item from the sidebar — I think we all know how, and for at least two of us, we can do it. But removal is only temporary. The next time (for me) a disk mounts, there is the partition up in the sidebar again. Why and how does it happen in the first place? How do we make this behavior cease?

  • by emolas,Solvedanswer

    emolas emolas Jan 1, 2013 1:27 PM in response to emolas
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 1, 2013 1:27 PM in response to emolas

    One of the other persons with this problem seems to have found the solution. See this thread. I tested the solution given and so far it is working. Turns out it was necessary to delete ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder as well as the finder and sidebar plists in ~/Library/Preferences, empty trash, log out, then log back in. What caused this anomaly to happen in the first place is still a mystery.