Hiding OS folders

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I've got RECYCLER, SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION, and MSDOWNLOAD.TMP sitting visibly on my external HD. How can I hide folders like these?
 
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you could add a leading dot, but then windows won't recognize them and will recreate new ones if you connect that drive to a windows pc again.

do you often switch back and forth between mac and windows with this external?

your best bet is just to delete them as you see them.
you're also likely to see the hidden OS X files on the windows machine, such as ".DS_Store", these can also be deleted.
 
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you could add a leading dot, but then windows won't recognize them and will recreate new ones if you connect that drive to a windows pc again.

do you often switch back and forth between mac and windows with this external?

your best bet is just to delete them as you see them.
you're also likely to see the hidden OS X files on the windows machine, such as ".DS_Store", these can also be deleted.

The drive was previously connected to a Windows machine, but I'm going to keep it on Mac from now on. Are you sure they're safe to delete?
 
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It won't let me delete them (error code 61), but isn't there a way to hide/make invisible OS folders like these?
 
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is this drive formatted NTFS? if so it is probably only readable, not writable from OS X. If this is the case you will need to copy everything on it somewhere you can retrieve it later and reformat the drive anything other than NTFS. If you are ever going to use it on a windows machine again i would recomend FAT32.

Error code 61 is -61 Write permissions error; Not a publisher.
see this site for what error codes mean.
 
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is this drive formatted NTFS? if so it is probably only readable, not writable from OS X. If this is the case you will need to copy everything on it somewhere you can retrieve it later and reformat the drive anything other than NTFS. If you are ever going to use it on a windows machine again i would recomend FAT32.

Error code 61 is -61 Write permissions error; Not a publisher.
see this site for what error codes mean.

Yeah, I think it is NTFS. How do I make it FAT32?
 
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first you will need to backup anything you want to keep from that drive. Reformatting will erase all data. Next open disk utility (just do a search for it in spotlight) and reformat using an option that is not NTFS

click here for a step by step to using disk utility.
 
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DO NOT format that drive in FAT32! Unless you want a lot of headaches. You are better off getting drivers to enable OS X to have write access to NTFS volumes. Here's a link to an old post of mine with more links to why not to use FAT32.

Of course, if you are never going to use that drive with Windows again, then you are best off backing up your data and reformatting it in HFS+.
 
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DO NOT format that drive in FAT32! Unless you want a lot of headaches. You are better off getting drivers to enable OS X to have write access to NTFS volumes. Here's a link to an old post of mine with more links to why not to use FAT32.

Of course, if you are never going to use that drive with Windows again, then you are best off backing up your data and reformatting it in HFS+.

Which drivers and where can I get them?
 
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I have yet to make the drive Mac compatible, but I had a question about viewing its contents: I'm trying to find out the dimensions of a .jpg file. Typically, I could right click > get info but these .jpg's on the hard drive have that info disabled -- it's just blank. Why would this be?
 
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Ok, so I type 'mdutil -i on /Volumes/Local Disk' in Terminal and it says it's an invalid path.

Is the disk actually named "Local Disk"? And isn't that your internal drive? I thought you wanted to enable Spotlight indexing on the external.

Also... the instructions say you must be logged in as root. Were you? If you weren't, and don't know how to, then chances are you shouldn't. Logging in as root leaves the system very vulnerable to serious mistakes that can hose everything up good. You really should know exactly what you are doing if you log in as root.

So then I try to rename my external and the spot to rename it (in Right Click > Get Info) is greyed out, i.e., locked.
I assume you have the external drive plugged in? If so, and if the drive icon is on the desktop, you should be able to click once on the icon (to make it "active"), then left click on the name to make it editable.

If that doesn't work, then in the Get Info box, click on the lock icon at the bottom to unlock the properties. You probably will have to authorize it with an admin name/password.
 
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To the anonymous individual who "disapproved" of my comment to avoid FAT32 like the plague:

Rather than repeat myself ad infinitum, please refer to this prior posting:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ot...n-hard-drive-backup-questions.html#post635605

Of course, if you really want to risk experiencing what this guy experienced by using FAT32, I can't stop ya. But don't make unsupported claims that 3rd party drivers are inherently less reliable... that simply isn't true.

Oh, and in the future, rather than giving someone a red ding on their rep, try posting openly your disagreement so there can be further discussion or "enlightenment" on the matter for the benefit of all.
 
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Is the disk actually named "Local Disk"? And isn't that your internal drive? I thought you wanted to enable Spotlight indexing on the external.

Also... the instructions say you must be logged in as root. Were you? If you weren't, and don't know how to, then chances are you shouldn't. Logging in as root leaves the system very vulnerable to serious mistakes that can hose everything up good. You really should know exactly what you are doing if you log in as root.

I assume you have the external drive plugged in? If so, and if the drive icon is on the desktop, you should be able to click once on the icon (to make it "active"), then left click on the name to make it editable.

If that doesn't work, then in the Get Info box, click on the lock icon at the bottom to unlock the properties. You probably will have to authorize it with an admin name/password.

By root, I thought you meant the primary login account?

There seems to be no possible way to rename the external known as Local Disk. Please check out the screen shot below:

localdisk.jpg
 
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By root, I thought you meant the primary login account?

There seems to be no possible way to rename the external known as Local Disk. Please check out the screen shot below:

localdisk.jpg

Nope, root is the "superuser" id. Logging in as root is ill-advised unless you are very clear and very sure of what you are doing. Many of the security features and warnings that one typically sees in a regular or admin user are not active. It is very easy to render your system unusable when logged as root.

I'll check out that screen shot later... I can't view attachments from work. If I have any new ideas, I'll post back then.
 
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Yeah, please try and take a look at the screenshot and tell me what's wrong with it. Much appreciated.
 

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