Re: System partition icons do not show up

Salmon Egg <SalmonEgg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am running a twin processor G4 using OS 10.5.1. I have two partitions with
old systems on a hard drive. These partitions do not mount in the sense that
their icons do not appear. Other partitions on the drive do have their icons
displayed. I can even reboot from them if I use System Startup to select
them (one at a time, of course). Disk Utility gives these partitions a clean
bill of health. Disk utility also seems to unmount and mount them although
their icons never appear on the screen.

What is happening? What can be done about it?

What do you see in Finder's "Computer" window? (Go > Computer)

Someone else had a similar problem a while ago and I was able to help
them fix it. It was pre-Leopard, I think.

In that case, they had a volume which had somehow had the "invisible"
attribute set on the root directory. This makes Finder hide it on the
desktop and sidebar, but you can still see it in Disk Utility.

To test this, I created a disk image and deliberately made it invisible.
I was able to see it by going to Finder's "Computer" view, but it was
hidden on the desktop and sidebar.

If this is consistent with what you are seeing, then it is possible to
fix it in Terminal.

All commands and file/folder names in the following instructions are
case sensitive. Make sure you enter them as shown here.

The following instructions are specific to Leopard (10.5).

(This problem can also be fixed in any version of Mac OS X with the
"SetFile" tool which is part of the developer tools, but you have to
install them first - see further below for details).

1. Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)

2. Change directory to /Volumes

cd /Volumes

3. Get a long directory listing with extended attributes

ls -l@

This should display something like the following:

drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin 204 7 Dec 20:46 .
drwxrwxr-t 40 root admin 1428 7 Dec 15:39 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 19 Nov 19:25 Cyclops HD -> /
drwxrwxr-x 12 root admin 476 11 Nov 01:51 Cyclops Tiger
drwxr-xr-x@ 7 dempson staff 306 7 Dec 20:44 Test
com.apple.FinderInfo 32

My main hard drive is caled "Cyclops HD", and I have a second partition
called "Cyclops Tiger".

In my example, I have deliberately made the "Test" disk image invisible.
This has resulted in it having extended attributes (@ symbol after the
permissions), and "com.apple.FinderInfo" is the name of the extended
attribute.

4. Use the 'xattr' tool to delete the extended attributes.

You will need to enter the name of your volume in the following command.
If it contains any spaces, the easiest way to type it is to start
entering it (it is case sensitive) up the point where you have entered
sufficient unique characters, then press the Tab key, which will fill in
the rest. Spaces will be preceded by \ (backslash). Alternatively, enter
the name in full surrounded by double quotes.

xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo Test

(Replace 'Test' with the name of your volume.)

5. Use Disk Utility to eject the volume, then mount it again. It should
appear on the desktop in Finder.


For Tiger (10.4) and earlier, you can fix this problem with the
developer tools. This will also work in Leopard (10.5). You can install
the developer tools from your system CD/DVD set, but they are pretty
huge. They will end up in /Developer in the root directory.

1. Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)

2. Change directory to /Volumes

cd /Volumes

3. Get a long directory listing

ls -l

This should display something like the following:

drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin 204 7 Dec 20:46 .
drwxrwxr-t 40 root admin 1428 7 Dec 15:39 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 19 Nov 19:25 Cyclops HD -> /
drwxrwxr-x 12 root admin 476 11 Nov 01:51 Cyclops Tiger
drwxr-xr-x 7 dempson staff 306 7 Dec 20:44 Test

(You can't tell whether the volume is invisible in the directory
listing.)

4. Use GetFileInfo to confirm the volume is invisible.

/Developer/Tools/GetFileInfo Test

(Replace 'Test' with the name of your volume - see above for how to
enter a name with spaces.)

It should display something like this:

directory: "/Volumes/Test"
attributes: aVbstclinmedz
created: 12/07/2007 20:41:47
modified: 12/07/2007 20:44:08

In the 'attributes' line, if the 'V' is a capital letter then the volume
is invisible.

5. Use SetFile to make the volume visible again.

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v Test

(Make sure the 'v' is lower case. Replace 'Test' with the name of your
volume.)

6. Use Disk Utility to eject the volume, then mount it again. It should
appear on the desktop in Finder.


If you don't want to install the developer tools, there may be another
solution. One third party utility I tried (XRay) doesn't let you control
the Invisible or other Finder extended attributes on a volume. I haven't
gone looking for other solutions to this problem.

--
David Empson
dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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