12-30-2006, 07:49 PM

When I woke my Macbook Pro up from sleep about 10 minutes ago, all of a sudden i noticed that the Macintosh HD icon(the hard drive) and also the Untitled HD(the Windows Partition) is gone from my desktop. What happened???!? That's one shortcut/icon i can't live without!!

12-30-2006, 07:52 PM

I'm not sure why that happened, but try opening a finder window and copy it from there to your desktop.

12-30-2006, 08:49 PM

in the meantime:

Shift + Command + A opens your Applications folder
Shift + Command + U opens your Utilities folder
Shift + Command + H opens your Home folder

12-30-2006, 08:58 PM

FINDER > PREFERENCES > GENERAL > Make sure the Hard Drive box is checked.

12-30-2006, 09:42 PM

Originally Posted by baggss

FINDER > PREFERENCES > GENERAL > Make sure the Hard Drive box is checked.

It is checked and it doesn't do anything. Obviousily it is mounted but it's not showing up on the desktop

12-30-2006, 09:47 PM

Have you tried restarting and the oldie but a goodie; Repair Permissions?

12-30-2006, 10:05 PM

I repaired and rebooted and it still hasn't changed...

12-30-2006, 10:49 PM

What's the version of your OS? And by that, I don't mean Tiger or 10.4, I mean for example, 10.4.3...

12-30-2006, 11:17 PM

It is version 10.4.8

12-30-2006, 11:23 PM

I'm thinking something, somehow set your Macintosh HD icon as invisible...

First, try reapplying the latest Combo update. You'll find that at Apple's website/Support/Downloads.

If that doesn't work, try Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.

If that doesn't work, take a look at this thread at Apple Discussions.

You could download and install something like OnyX to change the visibility of the hard drive icon but the problem with that solution is that you would see plenty of other files everywhere, all the time, so not such a hot idea. You need to specifically address this problem only with your HD icon, not all the files.

12-30-2006, 11:32 PM

ok, thanks a lot! I'll check all those links out. Also I want to point out that I don't have access to the / drive. I mean I can see everything in my account and my apps, but i have my games and other important documents stored in the root directory.

EDIT: MacHeadCase: What do you mean by latest "Combo" update?

12-30-2006, 11:34 PM

Never ever store ANYTHING in the root directory. That place belongs to the system. Could very well be that is what is confusing the system. Always store your stuff in your home directory. Always.

12-30-2006, 11:40 PM

MacHeadCase: What do you mean by latest "Combo" update?

12-30-2006, 11:41 PM

Find and delete the com.apple.finder.plist preference, which is probably corrupt.

This file can be found at:

Your User Account>Library>Preferences>com.apple.finder.plist

When done, restart your mac and see if this fixes it.

12-30-2006, 11:45 PM

What was the latest OS update you installed? Re-apply that.

You could try the Finder plist file deletion as Pulse-8 suggests. Could be that messing-around-in-root caused a corruption of the Finder prefs.