Re: Duplicate/False Mount Points

In article jollyroger-E2A360.15413004082009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jolly Roger
at jollyroger@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 8/4/09 4:41 PM:

In article <C69E0C86.42CC3%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com>,
Nick Naym <nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com> wrote:

... But I remain unsure regarding what it is I
actually need to find and delete, nor the best/safest way to go about it.
(And I'm totally in the dark about "mount points" and their function, nor
what could cause them to change, nor the implications of any such change.)

Mount points are folders in the Unix file system where the contents of a
mounted volume appear. Normally, they are automatically created by the
OS when you mount a volume, and later automatically deleted by the file
system when you unmount the corresponding volume.

Under some circumstances, however, the OS may fail to delete them. This
causes a problem the next time the volume is mounted, because an entity
of that name already exists in the same location (because the OS failed
to delete it last time you unmounted it). So the OS appends a numeric
digit to the name to make it unique, creates a folder with that name,
and mounts the volume there instead. This means you now have two folders
for the same volume. One of them is bogus, and you'll need to manually
remove it, as I have shown you.


I see. But where is this "bogus" folder if not in /Volumes? As I said, when
I looked inside /Volumes, there was no folder named "Seagate Barracuda 1" --
only an alias with that name, which pointed to the actual Seagate Barracuda
drive. In fact, the only _folder_ there was named "Seagate Barracuda." (With
the exception of a .DS file, the only other stuff in there are aliases.)


And (for my own understanding) what effect does this "bogus" folder have on
the system's operation? Initially, TM ceased to work for several days. It
seems to have "healed itself" somewhat (how's that for a mystical/medical
metaphor?), so I'm wondering if this kind of "error" is something that
Unix-based systems in general (or OS X in specific) is robust/smart enough
to repair on its own over time?


PS: How (...dare I ask?...) will this be any different than (a) dismounting
my Seagate Barracuda drive (with or without turning it off), opening
/Volumes (after making invisibles visible), and moving to the trash any
folder and/or alias that shows up with a name that includes "Seagate
Barracuda" -- which I _assume_ would be no more than the two items (the
"Seagate Barracuda" folder and the "Seagate Barracuda 1" alias) that showed
up when I looked in /Volumes earlier (<http://is.gd/22q5Y>)?

It differs in these ways:

1. The 'umount' command, run as root with sudo, will ensure that the OS
will not still think the volume is mounted even though you unmounted it.

2. Since you are using the command line, which has access to invisible
files by default, you won't have to bother with coercing the Finder into
showing invisible files.

3. The 'rm' command, run as root with sudo, with the -rf switches,
ensures that even if your normal user account does not have sufficient
permission to change said files, the files still will be deleted.

4. The 'rm' command will delete the files immediately rather than simply
moving them into your trash.

This "instant deletion" makes me nervous...that's how I lost my entire
desktop.



--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) ? OS X (10.5.7)

.

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