Macbook help pls!

All

I am having a small issue with my macbook. I purchased this in spring 09 and it has been working without any issues. However, over last few months i noticed that when I open up my finder window, I am no longer able to see my name which used to be one drive by itself. Its as though it has completely disappeared! Similarly my mobile preferences drive has also disappeared somewhere.

If some has had experience of this before or is aware of what is needed to fix this issue, please reply back!

Thanks in advance
Sanky

Try this. Right click (ctrl-click) the Finder icon. Select "Go to Folder". Type "/Users/" without the quotes in the box that pops up and push return. One of the folders that appears should be the folder with your name on it. Click/hold on that folder and drag it over to the left side of the Finder window where it used to be. Make sure you position it so that it it is in between the other Favorites and not over top of one of them. When the folder appears as a little blue line in between the other Favorites choices, release the mouse button. This should place the folder back in your sidebar.

The drive with your name was probably colored blue. It was the online drive offered by Apple until June 30th, when MobileMe was replaced by iCloud. iCloud doesn't offer the same online drive, so the icon (and drive) went away.

@Jaygray - thanks, will give it a shot today
@MacInWin - its interesting because when I click on the finder icon on my dock it directly goes to my drive with the name on it (and all the sub folders intact). The only problem with this whole issue is that I am not able to install anything new as it says the mac is unable to detect my drive.

Will give it another go with Jaygray's suggestion and come back!

Thanks both
Sanky

Are we talking drives or folders? The original post was about a drive with your name, but now it looks like you are talking about your home folder. Have you repaired permissions or tested the drive with Disk Utility since the problem appeared?

I might be confusing something for you (sorry about that!)

Basically when I click my finder window on the dock, it opens into a window - before I used to see my name as an option on the side, now I do not. This has been the issue all along (not sure if it clarifies the confusion).

Sanky

Also, I havent repaired my permissions or tested the drive yet. I wanted to check with someone here before doing something that could create a bigger problem!

Will revert back if JayGray suggestion doesnt work!

Checking permissions and verifying the drive will not cause any problems. OSX isn't Windows.

What Jaygray suggested should restore your home folder to Finder, but it probably won't solve the problem of not being able to install software. That problem will more than likely require you to repair permissions and verify the drive. But give Jaygray's suggestion a try.

Hi MacInWin,

Jaygray's suggestion dint work, guess I will have to repair permissions and verify the drive. Any best place that would give me a guide on this?

Sanky

Easy. Open Finder, go to Applications. Open the Utilities folder, run Disk Utility. Choose the drive you want, then click on Verify Disk and sit back for a few minutes. Let that run to completion. If there are errors, select Repair Disk and let it run. You can do the same for Permissions.

EDIT: THis is low risk, but just to make sure we're on the same page, when you open Finder, is it that YOUR name is missing but that you have all the other items in the left hand column, or is it that the entire left column has disappeared? Those are two different problems.

EDIT EDIT: Also, you probably cannot use Disk Utility to Repair the drive from which it booted. If Verify Drive finds errors, we'll have to walk through how to Repair it.

Hi MacInWin

I just did the first step you had suggested and got the below


Verifying volume “Sanky Drive”

Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid node structure
Volume check failed.

Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.

And yes to your question, I can see the column on the left, but just my name is missing.

Thanks
Sanky

What version of OSX is installed on your Macbook? If it's 10.6 or older, do you have your DVD that came with your Macbook? If it's 10.7 Lion you need to boot from the recovery console and run Disk Utilities from there.

Many times running Disk utility from the working drive will not allow it to repair.

You can also look for Onyx and download it. (Make sure you get the version for your version of OSX.) It can repair the boot drive without having the install DVDs. If you use Onyx, when it starts it automatically checks the boot drive and if it finds errors, repairs them. So as soon as it is done with that, you can then shut Onyx down again and not bother with any other cleaning it may suggest. It'll take a few minutes for that repair to finish, so let it do its work.

@MacInWin - I tried the Onyx option, it ran the checks and said I had errors (fixing which would take me back to applications -> utilities -> repair disk)
@dtravis7 - i do remember a cd being provided with my mac (but hadn't used it so long considering the efficiency of the system!).. I will take a look today to see if I can use that to repair my disk

a very stupid question - if I use the cd in mac, should i be saving my data before running this? or will I not lose any data?

thanks
Sanky

You should have been backing up your data LONG before this. Now's a good time to start.

Repairing your drive should not cause you to lose any data, but chas_m is correct that you should have backups just as a normal precaution. Hard drives DO fail, and rarely give advance warning.

Once you find the original CD, boot from it, do NOT install OSX, just use the Utilities menu at the top of the screen to select Disk Utility and run Repair on the hard drive from there. Once that is done, you can shut down and reboot. On the reboot, choose the hard drive as the boot disk and once it is all booted, eject the CD.

At that point, you can re-run disk utility and Verify to verify that the repairs worked.

EDIT: If you have Lion and if you have the recovery partition, you don't need the CDs. You can boot from the recovery partition and run DU from there. You never said what version of OSX you had.

MacInWin - thanks for this, will come back once I have tried it today/tom. I have the snow leopard version and hence will have to go the cd way!

thanks
sanky

All

Thanks for the help! I was now able to run the cd and fix the errors.

Help much appreciated!
Sanky