Mac OS X 10.5: Hard drive disappears from the Finder

Issue or symptom

A connected drive may not appear in the Finder, even though you can navigate to it via the Finder's Go menu.

Solution

1. Open Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities).
2. In Terminal, type or paste this command on a single line:
   
   xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment
   
   (Leave a space at the end but do not press Return yet.)
   
   
3. Append the path to the affected drive to the above command. For the startup volume, that path is "/".
   
   - For example, for the startup volume the entire command would be:
   
   xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment /
   
   - For a volume other than the startup volume, add "/Volumes/" and its name to the path. Remember to add a "\\" character before any spaces. For example, if the affected volume is named "My Mac drive", the entire command would be:
   
   xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment /Volumes/My\\ Mac\\ Drive
   
   
   
4. Press Return once you have verified the command is typed correctly.
5. In the Terminal window, type:
   
   sudo chflags nohidden (PATH)
   
   Replace (PATH) with the path to the volume that is affected by the issue, as you did in step 3.
   For example, to make your startup volume visible again you would use this command:
   sudo chflags nohidden /
   
   
6. Press Return.
7. Quit Terminal.
8. Log out and back in again (or restart).

Your drive should be visible.

This document will be updated as more information becomes available.