Mac OS X 10.2: Volume or Flash Card Does Not Appear in the Finder

Symptom

• MS-DOS or Microsoft Windows-formatted volumes (smaller than 128 GB) do not appear in the Finder.
• Compact Flash cards in a digital camera or card reader connected to the computer are available to iPhoto and Image capture, but do not appear in the Finder.

Solution

If the volume or flash card is 128 GB or larger, stop here and see technical document 107483 "Mac OS X 10.2: MS-DOS Disk Does Not Appear in Finder" instead.

An invisible file in the /Volumes directory is preventing the volume or card from appearing in the Finder. Delete this file to make the card appear.

Warning: This document describes how to delete an invisible file by entering commands in the Terminal application. If you are unfamiliar with Terminal and UNIX-like environments, you should proceed with caution. Entering commands incorrectly may result in data loss or unusable system software.

1. Insert the Compact Flash card in the camera or card reader, or try to get the Windows-formatted volume to appear in the Finder.

2. Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities).

3. Type: ls -a /Volumes

4. Press Return. The contents of the /Volumes directory appear. This should work even though the volume or media does not appear in the Finder.

Example: The directory should looks something like this:

.            ..           .DS_Store    ._Unlabeled    Unlabeled

In this example, the file named "._Unlabeled" is the invisible file preventing the volume or Compact Flash card named Unlabeled from appearing in the Finder. The files in your /Volumes directory may be named something else, but look for two nearly identical volume names with one having the addition
of ._ at the beginning of the file name.

5. Type: sudo rm <filename>

Be sure to replace <filename> with the name of the volume or Compact Flash card that begins with "._".

Example: Using the files from the example in step 3, type the following in Terminal: sudo rm /Volumes/._Unlabeled

6. Press Return.

7. Type an administrator account password when prompted.

8. Type: diskutil unmount <diskname>

9. Be sure to replace <diskname> with the name of the volume or Compact Flash card. This ejects the volume or Compact Flash card from the file system.

10. If you are using a flash card, remove the Compact Flash card from the reader or disconnect the camera from the computer.

11. Reinsert the Compact Flash card or reconnect the camera, or try to use the volume in the Finder.