21 replies to this topic

[raggedjagged]

Hi all,
I just did a near-perfect installation of Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on my GA-X58A-UD3R machine, now however, I have one problem:

How can I hide the Windows 7 created "System Reserved" partition from the SL desktop? Don't ask me to reinstall Windows to try and not let that partition be created (i'd rather leave that partition present in SL than to reinstall Windows).. so are there any real solutions to this within SL?

There are 2 methods that I have tried with no success:
1) SetFile method: Using the terminal tool SetFile (included when you install Xcode development tools), you can hide a partition by issuing the command: SetFile -a V /Volumes/System Reserved however, it didn't work for me, it gave me an error: No write permission (-61).. and I can't seem to fix that.

2)/etc/fstab method: I don't know how to prevent the drive from loading using this method because the partition does not have a UUID in SL, and the path name has a space in it.. so I don't know how to get it working.

If anyone has any ideas of fixes for this, please let me know, much appreciated, thanks!!

[iLevin]

just deinstall windows
no just kidding
but thats a good question i want to ´know it too

[andthenIwasabear]

raggedjagged, on Apr 17 2010, 10:08 AM, said:

Hi all,
I just did a near-perfect installation of Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on my GA-X58A-UD3R machine, now however, I have one problem:

How can I hide the Windows 7 created "System Reserved" partition from the SL desktop? Don't ask me to reinstall Windows to try and not let that partition be created (i'd rather leave that partition present in SL than to reinstall Windows).. so are there any real solutions to this within SL?

There are 2 methods that I have tried with no success:
1) SetFile method: Using the terminal tool SetFile (included when you install Xcode development tools), you can hide a partition by issuing the command: SetFile -a V /Volumes/System Reserved however, it didn't work for me, it gave me an error: No write permission (-61).. and I can't seem to fix that.

2)/etc/fstab method: I don't know how to prevent the drive from loading using this method because the partition does not have a UUID in SL, and the path name has a space in it.. so I don't know how to get it working.

If anyone has any ideas of fixes for this, please let me know, much appreciated, thanks!!

SetFile -a V "/Volumes/System Reserved" is pretty much your only option without hiding all attached drives/partitions; what file system is that partition using? If it's NTFS, that's why you're getting a Write error.

[raggedjagged]

andthenIwasabear: That's right, it's an NTFS partition (created by Windows 7 as a boot partition during install).. so any other option? How about /etc/fstab?

[Beerkex'd]

The solution is simple.

By default, Snow Leopard doesn't put any hard drive icons on your desktop.

Go back to the default setting of not showing drives on the desktop, then create aliases on your desktop for the hard drives you want there. Just like you would in Windows.

Personally I just use the shortcuts in the toolbar to the left of a Finder window when I need something on any of my NTFS drives. If you don't want to see your 'System Reserved' partition there either, just drag it off of the toolbar and it will disappear in an intuitive and user friendly puff of smoke.

[raggedjagged]

Well, I gave that a look and it's not that much of a fix for this case. (By the way, I never touched any Finder preferences, everything is default right since Snow Leopard's installation. I did not do anything special for the Windows and System Restore to be shown)

Unfortunately, the Windows and the System Partition drives are grouped as "CDs, DVDs and iPods" (and not "Hard Drives").. which I'd rather not have hidden in case I plug in my iPod or insert a CD or DVD.

There should be a way to stop Snow Leopard from even mounting select drives on boot.

[imacken]

raggedjagged, on Apr 18 2010, 07:03 AM, said:

Unfortunately, the Windows and the System Partition drives are grouped as "CDs, DVDs and iPods" (and not "Hard Drives").. which I'd rather not have hidden in case I plug in my iPod or insert a CD or DVD.

There is something wrong then.
What does System Profiler say under Serial-ATA?

[rabbit74]

Have you tried installing NTFS support and then running the command thus:

sudo SetFile -a V /Volumes/system\ reserved

I have not tried it. Just a thought.

What I do to deal with spaces in command lines is as follows

type your comand in  terminal first like this

sudo setfile -a v

at this point i grab the drive icon from the desktop into the terminal window. this way terminal creates the correct path for you and adds it to your command line.

and I end up with this

sudo setfile -a v /Volumes/system\ reserved

I hope that helps

P.

[Beerkex'd]

FWIW I agree with imacken, it seems you have bigger problems that you should fix first.

[raggedjagged]

imacken, on Apr 18 2010, 02:30 PM, said:

There is something wrong then.
What does System Profiler say under Serial-ATA?

I've attached a screenshot of the Serial-ATA section in System Profile, is it not normal?

 Screen_shot_2010_04_21_at_5.55.39_AM.png   70.61K   94 downloads

Is there something wrong with that? I've always seen Windows and NTFS drives not being under "Hard Drives" in Finder on multiple computers.. Help!!

[Beerkex'd]

Well it says 'unknown', do you have ICH9R or ICH10R? (assuming the R in your motherboard model name refers to RAID)

[raggedjagged]

Beerkex'd: Okay I got the 'unknown' showing the text of my SATA now.. which is ICHR9 .. I just put in AHCIPortInjector.kext in my /E/E/ ..s it now shows ICH9R in that System Profiler section. However, the NTFS drives are still being shown as "CDs, DVDs, and iPods" in Finder Preferences.. The only drives that show as "Hard Drives" are OSX and Time Machine! What's going on?

[Beerkex'd]

Look in System Profiler or Disk Utility and check if your NTFS drives are 'external'. If your drive icons are orange then don't bother, that means I'm right    When the drives are seen as external, they get grouped with "CDs, DVDs and iPods" and are shown on the desktop.
This is normal, it happens on a real Mac as well when you connect an external drive.

You can use the IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext that comes with Chameleon to make your drives 'internal'.

[DR_FAil]

sudo su
nano /etc/rc.local
add line:
diskutil unmount "/Volumes/System Reserved" ("System Reserved" - name of partition)
save Ctrl+X.

[orwell]

This method involves utilizing the File System Table (fstab) for the BSD subsytem.

First you need to know the mount points of the partitons you don't want to see. I'll use "winxp" and "backup" for the examples. If you didn't know, the partition on which OS X resides is mounted to / (root), and all subsequent partitons are mounted to /Volumes/. You can find the mount point of any given partiton using disk utility, selecting the partiton and hit the info button up top. I have 2 drives. One with 2 partitions and one with 3 partitions. The primary drive has my OSX partition and one for winxp. The second drive has a documents partition, and media partition, and a backup partition. For day to day use in OS X I don't want to see the winxp nor the backup partions. From disk utility, I find their mount points are /Volumes/winxp and /Volumes/backup respectivley.

The first thing we need to do is to crate the fstab file in the /etc folder. Open up a Terminal and:
CODE
sudo nano /etc/fstab


now we need to edit to suit our needs. The typical entry line in fstab contains on line for each mount, with the data in the format :
file system mount-point type options
So to tell it to not mount a specific drive or partition, we just need to specify not to do so.

CODE
LABEL=winxp none ntfs ro,noauto
LABEL=backup none HFS+ ro,noauto


In the example,
"LABEL=winxp" is my windows partition, "none" is the mount point, "ntfs" is the type, and "ro,noauto" are the options.

You must use the appropriate type for the partiton, ie: ntfs HFS HFS+ msdos etc.

The options "ro,noauto" mean read only, don't auto mount. For read / write of supported file systems use rw.

If your partition name has a space on the name, you need to replace the space with "\040" ie. "LABEL=Win\040XP" for Win XP.

Once you have the code entered, hit cntrl-x and it will ask if you want to save. Hit y for yes, and it'll ask if you want to save it as fstab. Hit enter.

Now just restart, and the drives won't auto-mount.

[raggedjagged]

Beerkex'd, on Apr 21 2010, 11:19 AM, said:

Look in System Profiler or Disk Utility and check if your NTFS drives are 'external'. If your drive icons are orange then don't bother, that means I'm right    When the drives are seen as external, they get grouped with "CDs, DVDs and iPods" and are shown on the desktop.
This is normal, it happens on a real Mac as well when you connect an external drive.

You can use the IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext that comes with Chameleon to make your drives 'internal'.

I already have OrangeIconFix.kext, and my drives don't appear as orange icons, they appear as internal hard drive (shiny metal) icons. However you are right, all of my Hard disks, including the OS X one itself, appear as "External" types.. (but its weird how OS X drive, eventhough seen as External in Disk Utility, is grouped with Hard Drives in Finder prefs.) So now I need the IOAHCIBlockStorageInject.kext to fix this?

Thanks for your help!!

DR_FAil, on Apr 21 2010, 12:18 PM, said:

sudo su
nano /etc/rc.local
add line:
diskutil unmount "/Volumes/System Reserved" ("System Reserved" - name of partition)
save Ctrl+X.

orwell, on Apr 21 2010, 12:41 PM, said:

This method involves utilizing the File System Table (fstab) for the BSD subsytem.

First you need to know the mount points of the partitons you don't want to see. I'll use "winxp" and "backup" for the examples. If you didn't know, the partition on which OS X resides is mounted to / (root), and all subsequent partitons are mounted to /Volumes/. You can find the mount point of any given partiton using disk utility, selecting the partiton and hit the info button up top. I have 2 drives. One with 2 partitions and one with 3 partitions. The primary drive has my OSX partition and one for winxp. The second drive has a documents partition, and media partition, and a backup partition. For day to day use in OS X I don't want to see the winxp nor the backup partions. From disk utility, I find their mount points are /Volumes/winxp and /Volumes/backup respectivley.

The first thing we need to do is to crate the fstab file in the /etc folder. Open up a Terminal and:
CODE
sudo nano /etc/fstab


now we need to edit to suit our needs. The typical entry line in fstab contains on line for each mount, with the data in the format :
file system mount-point type options
So to tell it to not mount a specific drive or partition, we just need to specify not to do so.

CODE
LABEL=winxp none ntfs ro,noauto
LABEL=backup none HFS+ ro,noauto


In the example,
"LABEL=winxp" is my windows partition, "none" is the mount point, "ntfs" is the type, and "ro,noauto" are the options.

You must use the appropriate type for the partiton, ie: ntfs HFS HFS+ msdos etc.

The options "ro,noauto" mean read only, don't auto mount. For read / write of supported file systems use rw.

If your partition name has a space on the name, you need to replace the space with "\040" ie. "LABEL=Win\040XP" for Win XP.

Once you have the code entered, hit cntrl-x and it will ask if you want to save. Hit y for yes, and it'll ask if you want to save it as fstab. Hit enter.

Now just restart, and the drives won't auto-mount.

Thanks for the info guys! I'll try that

Orwell: I have to try that, my earlier experimenting with fstab didnt quite work, lets see how following your instructions will result.

[Beerkex'd]

OrangeIconFix does just that, it only fixes the icons and does not change the actual status of the drives. Hotplugging works.

IOACHIBlock(...).kext sets the drives as internal, which in turn make the icons change but you lose hotplugging.

Don't use both at the same time, there's no point.

If you have a ICH9 or 10 SATA controller, you could also set the drives as internal via DSDT.

[raggedjagged]

Thanks for the reply Beerkext'd.. well since I do not use esata, I think hotplugging is of no use to me.. so I'll replace OIF to IOAHCIBlock...kext. However, I think DSDT will be better, do you know what changes to dsdt I have to make? I have an ICH9R controller.

[Beerkex'd]

You can get the general idea from reading this:
http://www.insanelym...howtopic=168014

The initial post is about USB but you can apply the same trick to your SATA controller. The device ID for the ICH10 that Apple uses  (it's 3a22) works well with our ICH10/9/R. See post #26, #46 and the comments that follow.

Actually, come to think of it you will still need  the BlockStorageInjector when patching device IDs in the DSDT like this. It's the other ICHx kext you can ditch, I get confused easily trying to remember all these things.

Anyway if you're new to DSDT patching, try this, it's a good exercise for a beginner   and do the USB controllers too.

[redneckrecon134]

Just figured this one out, in terminal type "sudo nano /etc/fstab"

then paste the following line minus quotes

"LABEL=System\040Reserved none ntfs rw,noauto"

then hit control+x, type "y" then hit enter, the system reserved partition will no longer mount in OS X but can be mounted via disk util if the need is ever there.  Be advised if you do mount this volume you have read and write access to it with the above.  My first post WOOT!