Missing Hard drive icons on desktop and in finder.

I am running a PowerMac G4 Dual 1Ghz, 1.25 GB. I have a an 80GB seagate (OS and program drive) that my machine came with, and two other drives (Media drives) I installed a while ago. I dont know what happened but something has set my harddrives to hidden.

I have read other forums about a "setfile" switch that might have been turned on.


I just had an episode where while switching startup folders, as I switched the previous start up folders became unavailable. Its good that I have extra harddrives laying around. I loaded a clean OSX, reconnected the 80GB and searched it in spotlight, "getinfo", and reset the permissions, and was able to see my system folder again in the startup disk pane of system preferences. so know I am back on my profile. But I still cant see my HardDrive Icons.

Anybody have any Ideas where I can go to be able to see my harddrive icons again?

Finder, Preferences, click the General tab, make sure there are check marks next to the stuff you want to show up.

It shows that Hard disks are to be shown.

Where Would I find the "Finder preference File", it was suggested that I should try deleting it to see if that would work. I dont like deleting thing especially since I loaded a whole new os on a completely different disk and did not see the hard drive on the desktop or finder. when searched in spotlight it shows up. I click on it and I can fumble around in the harddrive. But I did notice that the Harddrive icon is greyed out.

does this help out any?

Users -> home folder -> Library -> Preferences -> com.apple.finder.plist