Finder can't find anything

J

jimmynitcher

Guest
OK, I thought this was because the HD was un-indexed, but now I've done it and it still can't find even the most obvious folders.
Any ideas?
J
 
Joined
Feb 2, 2004
Messages
12,455
Reaction score
604
Points
113
Location
PA
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook
jimmynitcher said:
OK, I thought this was because the HD was un-indexed, but now I've done it and it still can't find even the most obvious folders.
Any ideas?
J

Might need a little more info here...when you open a Finder window, you don't see anything? What folders were you trying to access?

If you have rebooted already, try booting from the CD and running Disk Utility to repair the disk.
 
OP
Z

zakatov

Guest
did you click on the magnifying glass and select where you want to search: "Local Disks", "Home", "Selection", "Everywhere" ?

If that's where ur searching from, that is
 
OP
J

jimmynitcher

Guest
Thanks for the replies,

To clarify; the Finder window comes up OK, I select 'Everywhere' or something else (I've tried all types of searches) and then click find and in all cases so far I get zero results.

I indexed the HD and re-booted without any change.

I will try reparing the disk from CD.

Thanks again

J
 
Joined
Feb 2, 2004
Messages
12,455
Reaction score
604
Points
113
Location
PA
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook
jimmynitcher said:
Thanks for the replies,

To clarify; the Finder window comes up OK, I select 'Everywhere' or something else (I've tried all types of searches) and then click find and in all cases so far I get zero results.

I indexed the HD and re-booted without any change.

I will try reparing the disk from CD.

Thanks again

J

What is it that you are tyring to locate? Was it a file you lost, or is it a particular folder? If you are in 10.3.x, the most "obvious" folders should be in your Finder's sidebar. These are the folders in your user account's Home folder.
 
OP
J

jimmynitcher

Guest
Hi,

Yes thanks I know what the sidebar is for - I want to find files that aren't in the sidebar ie that I have 'lost'.

I have now booted from CD and repaired permissions and repaired the Disk with no improvement.

A lot of the files and folders on the HD have been dragged from another computer - could this be the cause? (Though it's all been indexed-see above).

thanks again

J
 
Joined
Dec 28, 2003
Messages
911
Reaction score
13
Points
18
Location
Long Island, NY
Your Mac's Specs
15" MacBook Pro & 23" ACD
Do you have permission to read or write to the files you are looking for? Are you administrator? Without proper permissions, or if you aren't an administrator, you can only find things in your home folder, because that's all you'd have access to.
 
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
4,374
Reaction score
55
Points
48
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Your Mac's Specs
PowerMac G4 Cube 450mhz 832mb
how about if instead of searching via a finder window, what happens if in the finder, you click File>Find? have you recently installed any new hardware or software?
 
OP
J

jimmynitcher

Guest
Thanks for the ideas,

I'm afraid neither of those things clear it up - all the files/folders have Read and Write permissions and if I got to File>Find it makes no difference.

I haven't installed anything recently, unfortunately I'm not sure when the problem started, it's quite possible it coincided with the installation of an app but I can't say if that's so.

Really appreciate your efforts on this folks,

J
 
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
4,374
Reaction score
55
Points
48
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Your Mac's Specs
PowerMac G4 Cube 450mhz 832mb
have you tried using a 3rd party app like onyx to clean some your user caches, or have you tried resetting your pram?
 
Joined
Mar 9, 2004
Messages
2,860
Reaction score
21
Points
38
Location
Miami FL
Your Mac's Specs
G4 1Ghz OS X 10.4.7
What was the app you installed? When repair permissions or disk repair doesn't work, it can't hurt to try a restart hold Apple S to single user terminal. and in there type /sbin/fsck -fy until **files system changed** massage stops showing
 
OP
J

jimmynitcher

Guest
Thanks again for your help,

Apps I have installed around the time I have noticed this problem (possibly);

DVD2OneX, DVDBackup,RME Fireface Mixer.

Witeshark - " type... until **files system changed ** message stops showing" do you actually mean keep typing it until the message disappears?

Also what does this do, if it's possible to explain simply.

All these ideas are much appreciated

J

PS. I've heard musicians (for I am one) prefer 10.3.4 - would a simple upgrade solve my problem I wonder?
 
Joined
Mar 9, 2004
Messages
2,860
Reaction score
21
Points
38
Location
Miami FL
Your Mac's Specs
G4 1Ghz OS X 10.4.7
fsck is a file system check and will restore anything not right in file system at a very fundamental level:
NAME
fsck - filesystem consistency check and interactive repair
details (if you want):
SYNOPSIS
fsck -p [-f] [-m mode]
fsck [-b block#] [-c level] [-l maxparallel] [-q] [-y] [-n] [-m mode]
[filesystem] ...

DESCRIPTION
The first form of fsck preens a standard set of filesystems or the speci-
fied filesystems. It is normally used in the script /etc/rc during auto-
matic reboot. Here fsck reads the table /etc/fstab to determine which
filesystems to check. Only partitions in fstab that are mounted ``rw,''
``rq'' or ``ro'' and that have non-zero pass number are checked.
Filesystems with pass number 1 (normally just the root filesystem) are
checked one at a time. When pass 1 completes, all remaining filesystems
are checked, running one process per disk drive. The disk drive contain-
ing each filesystem is inferred from the longest prefix of the device
name that ends in a digit; the remaining characters are assumed to be the
partition designator. In preening mode, filesystems that are marked
clean are skipped. Filesystems are marked clean when they are unmounted, when they have been mounted read-only, or when fsck runs on them success-
fully.

The kernel takes care that only a restricted class of innocuous filesys-
tem inconsistencies can happen unless hardware or software failures
intervene. These are limited to the following:
Unreferenced inodes
Link counts in inodes too large
Missing blocks in the free map
Blocks in the free map also in files
Counts in the super-block wrong
 
OP
J

jimmynitcher

Guest
Ha ha brilliant, thanks, I've no idea what all that meant, serves me right for asking, I guess these things can't be explained "simply" or not in the way I define the term anyway.

I guess I'll just do it and see if it cures the problem.


Thanks for taking the time.

J
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top