Finder not able to view folders and files on EHD after updating to OS X 10.9.4

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Level 1

8 points

Finder not able to view folders and files on EHD after updating to OS X 10.9.4

I can see still see 'Hitachi' in the 'Devices' Sidebar, but I am not able to view folders and files on this Hitachi XL2000 2TB FAT32 Hard Drive (EHD) that is USB connected to the iMac below.

Late 2013 Apple iMac (27-inch Display 2560 x 1440), 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz, 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB, 512GB Flash Storage, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2GB GDDR5, Magic Trackpad, Apple Wireless Keyboard and OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks

All was fine until I updated from OS X 10.9.3 to 10.9.4 earlier this week, so now when I double-click on 'Hitachi' it just loads and loads with nothing happening and never displays the folder and file contents of the EHD.

Also, confirmed that Hitachi EHD has been removed from Spotlight indexing per System Preferences > Privacy > + > Hitachi and it was so this does not seem to be an indexing issue.

I have used OnyX and Apple Disk Utilities unsuccessfully to try and fix this problem.

Interestingly, Backblaze online backup still sees the EHD and connecting this EHD to a Win 8.1 PC also sees the EHD.

Further, I ran the commands below in 'Terminal' to make sure the drive was visible and got the following results which shows that the EHD is not hidden.

iMac:Applications john$ chflags nohidden /Volumes/Hitachi/

iMac:Applications john$ GetFileInfo /Volumes/Hitachi/

directory: "/Volumes/HITACHI"

attributes: avbstclinmedz

modified: 07/10/2014 23:26:44

Finally, I installed XtraFinder and am still not able to see the contents of the EHD, but when I installed OmniDiskSweeper I can navigate the EHD folder tree with no problems and can see the contents of the EHD, but when I try and open up a file it opens Finder which loads and loads and nothing happens.

Posted on Jul 11, 2014 11:54 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,472 points

Jul 11, 2014 12:18 PM in response to jwjb

First there is no need for third party utilities such as Onyx. You said you used Disk Utilities however did not elaborate as to exactly what you used DU for. I would recommend resetting the PRAM on the computer, then test again. Also elborate what you used DU to do and on what drive you used it on.

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Answer 2

jwjb Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2014 3:18 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Disk Utilities was used to try to verify and repair the EHD, but unfortunately it could not be completed in 'Live Mode'. So I restarted to get in recovery mode by holding down Command-R and then chose Disk Utilities and was able to run the verify and repair tests which stated everything appears OK. Per your suggestion, I will reset the PRAM and found this article OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer’s PRAM and About NVRAM and PRAMto help me walk through the steps.

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Answer 3

jwjb Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2014 4:19 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Followed through OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer’s PRAM steps and still having this problem.

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Answer 4

jwjb Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2014 7:09 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Just got off the phone after four hours with Apple Support and went through a whole laundry list of items which I cannot recreate, but I believe the below is a correct summary of the process and thanks go out to the excellent two Apple Support Advisors that worked with me in trying to resolve this issue.

But the long and short of it is that after a new root user was created the contents of the EHD could be seen in this new account so it appears that some of the files in my '/Users/john/Library' have somehow become corrupted so at our next phone appointment the Apple Senior Advisor wants to recreate my user account and copy all of my data into this new account to resolve this issue.

As this is primarily a development environment, I am contemplating reformatting the SSD and reinstalling OS X 10.9.4 to fix the problem to ensure the integrity of the developmental system.

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Answer 5

jwjb Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 11, 2014 7:14 PM in response to rkaufmann87

It goes without saying that I will post the resolution to this problem when it has been discovered.

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Answer 6

jwjb Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 15, 2014 5:19 PM in response to jwjb

Apple Support was quite helpful, but in the end I will wait to do a clean install of OS X Yosemite which is due in the Fall and not try and fix OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks.

It turns out that I run backups on my '/Users/john/Library' and the size of this folder before the 10.9.4 update was 1.07 GB and after the update it is 806.9 MB which is baffling, but in the end all of these problems should be resolved with a clean install of OS X Yosemite.

One lesson learned for the future is that I will wait on installing an update until it has been in the wild for awhile as a quick OS X Mavericks Finder Problem search and similar searches show there could be an issue.

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Answer 7

jwjb Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 18, 2014 6:40 PM in response to jwjb

Found another File Manager called Files which is working great to access EHD in addition to OmniDiskSweeper which is great in finding and deleting files on the EHD.

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Answer 8

jwjb Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 9, 2014 11:40 AM in response to jwjb

My system had gotten progressively worse where I was not able to do any work without experiencing quite a few anomalous fall outs with 'Apple Finder' not only locking up and using a lot of processing power, but also other apps that were working fine are now locking up too.

To this end, I called Apple Support and they walked me through the simple and straightforward process of reformatting my SSD and reinstalling OS X Mavericks.

Since then I have been busily re-building my dev environment which has proven more time-consuming than I could have imagined, but at least 'Apple Finder' is able to navigate the EHD with no problems as well as not using a lot of processing power and locking up so I consider this incident now closed.

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