Accidentally removed "Macintosh HD" from the sidebar

Question

Level 1

8 points

Accidentally removed "Macintosh HD" from the sidebar

I went to click on the "Macintosh HD" in the Finder sidebar, but moved the mouse a bit as I did so, causing the icon to be removed from the sidebar. It no longer shows up on my desktop, either, and using the preferences for the Finder to enable Hard Disks for the sidebar does nothing. I can access the hard drive through Safari, but I can't drag the icon into the sidebar. I'd really rather not have to type the folder path into Safari every time I want to access the hard drive, and I find it difficult to believe that there is no way to get it back in to the sidebar. So what am I missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on May 20, 2007 6:37 PM

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Answer 1

May 21, 2007 12:23 AM in response to Helsabot

Do you have the Path item in your toolbar? Open something else, say your home folder, then click on the Path tool and see if everything is there, but the MacHD icon appears "greyed" out in comparison. If you don't have the Path tool, just open a Finder window, any window will do, go to the menu bar View item, select Customize Toolbar and add the Path. If the MacHD icon is greyed out in Path list, then you are a victim of the Invisibility Plague. See this article for the cure:

http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html

The Applescript I wrote is the easiest fix.
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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Answer 2

Henry G4

Level 4

1,871 points

May 20, 2007 6:50 PM in response to Helsabot

Hi.

In order to show the Macintosh HD on the Desktop, you have to check Hard disks on the General Preferences of the Finder, rather than in Sidebar preferences.

If it doesn't work, you may try relaunching the Finder. If it doesn't work either, try moving these files to the Desktop:

User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebars.plist

and relaunch the Finder.

Good Luck.

MacMini G4 1.25GHz 1GB Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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Answer 3

Helsabot Author

Level 1

8 points

May 20, 2007 7:00 PM in response to Henry G4

Hard Disks is checked in the General Preferences of the Finder already, and relaunching it didn't work. I moved the two files you suggested moving to the desktop (for me it was User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist rather than User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebars.plist, but I doubt that matters), relaunched the Finder, and still no luck. Thanks for the suggestions, though.

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Answer 4

Helsabot Author

Level 1

8 points

May 20, 2007 7:02 PM in response to Gnarlodious

Sadly, I had already tried that, and it did not work. Generally the Macintosh HD does not even show up when I select my "computer name," but I can get it to show up using the file path in Safari. When I try to drag it into the sidebar, it won't let me. Thanks again for the suggestion.

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Answer 5

May 20, 2007 7:50 PM in response to Helsabot

In that case, bring Finder to front and Use the "Go" menu, scroll down to "Go to Folder". Type /Volumes" in the window and open the Volumes folder which is invisible. The Volumes folder has an alias to your hard disk. Drag that alias to the sidebar.

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Answer 6

May 21, 2007 6:51 AM in response to Helsabot

Wow Francine, never even heard of that one!

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Answer 7

May 20, 2007 6:55 PM in response to Helsabot

See in the Sidebar your "Computer Name"? Select that and you should see your hard disk there along with "Network". Just drag the hard disk icon to the sidebar and drop it.

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