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Multiplying Hard Drives

Elaine — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:00:36 +0000

When my 24 inch iMac was dying it’s long and painful death amongst the many issues I encountered was an annoying drive related problem. Since, the entire machine was becoming more unstable by the day I had more to worry about than the niceties of drive names. Sadly I’ve encountered the same issue several times recently and knew the time had come to undertake some research and hopefully formulate a fix for it.

What’s the problem?

First, the specifics of what drives are affected and what the symptoms are. For me it was external drives, irrespective of connection type. This means it’s not limited to just USB, or just firewire but is equally applicable to eSata and network volumes.

The problem is very subtle, the first symptoms for me were scheduled backups that failed with error messages telling me that destination drive is unavailable. This was despite me being able to see the drive in the Finder window.

The exact symptoms will depend on what you use the external drive for but for me problems included:

- Lightroom unable to locate the catalog
- Aperture unable to locate database
- iPhoto unable to find library
- iTunes unable to find database file and/or media files
- ChronoSync failing to locate backup drive
- Email Backup Pro failing to backup
- MailSteward failing to backup

From my research TimeMachine would also fail to function correctly as well.

The problem stems from OS X deeming that the drive in question has been ejected illegally. This can happen when a Mac sleeps, crashes or kernel panics. When the Mac is rebooted the drive is mounted but instead of mounting using the drive name it is mounted using the drive name and a number tagged on the end. So for me "Current" became "Current 1".

Confusingly this is NOT displayed in the Finder which still happily refers to the drive by the expected name in my case "Current".

How do you find the name of the mount point?

The easiest way is to ascertain the mount point name is to use Disk Utility.

Select the drive name from the drive list on the left of the window (1) and the mount point name is displayed in the information below (2).

Showing Invisible Files

The easiest way to fix it I found was to use PathFinder.

You will need to be able to access hidden files so select View > Show Invisible Files from the PathFinder menu.

The next step is to navigate to the root of the Macintosh HD and locate the Volumes folder.

Locating the problem folder

Inside the Volumes folder you should find shortcuts to all the drives on your system and at least one folder with the same name as the drive with which you are having problems.

Here I have a folder named Current (1) and a drive called Current (2).

Removing the folder

Move the folder to another location.

You may need to authenticate in order to be able to do this so enter your password in the dialog that appears.

Hiding the files again

Select View > Show Invisible Files from the PathFinder menu to hide the invisible files.

Finishing up

The final step is to either eject the drive with the "+1" mount point or reboot. Either of these options will ensure that the mount point is reset to the original name and all the applications and processes should run as previously.

Alternatives

There are of course several other ways to remove the offending folder so PathFinder isn’t a requirement but for me it’s the fastest way to do it and I’ve had to repeat the process more times than I’d like so I’ve got it down to a fine art now.

The other methods involve using a system utility, such as Onyx, TinkerTool or Cocktail to show the invisible files and Finder to locate and remove the folder. Alternatively there are Terminal commands available to achieve the same result.

I hope you never have cause to use any of the fixes but if you do I trust these steps help you.

O2′s not so simple Simplicity for iPhone

Elaine — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:35:50 +0000

So the magic day has arrived … I’m out of contract on my iPhone 3G *deep joy*

Time to change to a better value tariff so off I headed to O2 in Bolton. I knew what I wanted was a tariff called Simplicity 20 for iPhone … if only acquiring it had been simple. Sadly, it was a complete disaster, for the full horror of the day take a listen to MacBites episode 40.

The store staff had clearly had no training in what was available to cater for the specific needs of iPhone customers. A glaring omission given that all the customers who purchased an iPhone 3G on the day of release are out of contract this month. The staff were all most helpful and cordial but this didn’t translate into a smooth transaction when they were unaware of the difference between a Simplicity tariff and a Simplicity for iPhone tariff.

For the record this is the difference:

Simplicity (During January promotion) – £20

700 Free voice minutes (100 minutes more than usual)
700 Free text messages (100 texts more than usual)
1 free bolt-on (they recommend unlimited internet)

No visual voice mail
No free wifi

Simplicity (After January promotion ends) – £20

600 Free voice minutes
600 Free text messages
1 free bolt-on (they recommend unlimited internet)

No visual voice mail
No free wifi

Simplicity 20 for iPhone – £20

600 Free voice minutes
1200 Free text messages
2 free bolt-ons (they recommend unlimited internet and unlimited wifi)

Includes visual voice mail

The Best Way to proceed?

From my experiences I’d by-pass the stores, they don’t seem to have a clue what is the best option for iPhone customers coming out of contract, and call O2 directly. If given a choice, which you should be if ringing via your iPhone, select the option to speak to the cancellations department. The option actually connects you to a department called Retentions who seem to be the only people at O2 who have any knowledge of the existence of the iPhone version of the Simplicity tariff.

Tell the Retentions department you want to switch to Simplicity 20 for iPhone with 600 free minutes, 1200 free texts, 2 bolt-ons and visual voice mail. If they deny all knowledge of its existence ask to speak to a supervisor and/or show them this screen capture of my O2 account … it really exists!!

You might have to wait 24 hours for everything to be activated and you might have to manually reconfigure your settings. One of the side effects of changing tariffs was that the phone reset itself and failed to connect to the 3G network. This was easily rectified by entering the following settings into the General > Network > Cellular Data Network of the phone:

The only other gotcha I encountered was having to set Visual Voice Mail up again from scratch but this shouldn’t be necessary if O2 transfer you to the correct tariff in the first place. Being without my visual voice mail made me realize that it was a feature of the iPhone that I had greatly under-appreciated … a mistake I won’t make again

Good luck with your tariff transfers and I’d love to hear how you get on so be sure to leave me a comment below!

Quick URL Entry on an iPhone Redux

Elaine — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:33:22 +0000

Within days of getting my iPhone 3G in the summer of 2008 I’d found a real time saving feature on the keyboard for entering URL extensions and blogged about it too at Quick URL Entry on an iPhone.

Well after the v.3 update not only is the feature still there but the range of extensions has been expanded.

Ireland will forever thank you

Nice attention to detail there Apple!