Mac OS X 10.0: Removable disks don‘t appear (mount) on desktop

When the disk is inserted, an alert appears with this message:

"You have inserted a disk containing volumes that Mac OS X can't read. To use the unreadable volumes, click Initialize. To use only the rest of the disk, click Continue."

This issue may occur when certain information is missing from the file /etc/hostconfig.

First, be sure that you have selected the checkbox to Show disks on the Desktop in Finder Preferences:

1. Click Finder in the Dock.
2. Choose Preferences from the Finder application menu.

To determine if information is missing from the file /etc/hostconfig, check the contents of this file using TextEdit.

Checking the hostconfig file

Follow these steps:

1. Open TextEdit (located in the Applications folder).
2. Choose Open from the File menu.
3. In the "Go to" field of the Open dialog, type: /etc/hostconfig
4. Click Open.

The hostconfig file should contain the following line:

AUTODISKMOUNT=-REMOVABLE-

The final section of this article contains a sample hostconfig file that is correctly set up. If this line is not present, removable media will not appear on the desktop. You can update the hostconfig file by following these steps.

Updating the hostconfig file

1. Create a new document in TextEdit.
2. Copy and Paste in the text that is in the section below, titled "Sample hostconfig file."
3. Choose Make Plain Text command from the Format menu.
Note: If this command is not present in the Format menu, skip this step (as you have already set plain text as the default format).
4. Save this file to the Documents folder with the name: hostconfig
Note: The resulting file will actually be called: hostconfig.txt
5. Open the Terminal application (located in the Utilities folder).
6. Type: sudo mv /etc/hostconfig /etc/hostconfig.old
7. Press Return.
8. Type the Admin user password, and press Return.
Note: The command will rename the existing hostconfig file to hostconfig.old.
9. Type:  sudo cp ~/Documents/hostconfig.txt /etc/hostconfig
Note: This command copies the new hostconfig file to the correct location.
10. Press Return.
11. Restart the computer.

Sample hostconfig file

Begin copying below this line:

---

##

# /etc/hostconfig

##

# This file is maintained by the system control panels

##

# Network configuration

HOSTNAME=-AUTOMATIC-

ROUTER=-AUTOMATIC-

# Services

AFPSERVER=-NO-

APPLETALK=-NO-

AUTHSERVER=-NO-

AUTOCONFIG=-YES-

AUTODISKMOUNT=-REMOVABLE-

AUTOMOUNT=-YES-

CONFIGSERVER=-NO-

IPFORWARDING=-NO-

MAILSERVER=-NO-

MANAGEMENTSERVER=-NO-

NETBOOTSERVER=-NO-

NISDOMAIN=-NO-

TIMESYNC=-NO-

QTSSERVER=-NO-

SSHSERVER=-NO-

WEBSERVER=-NO-

---

End copying above this line.