[timpent]

Hi

Last week I upgraded my iMac DV 400 512Mb to 10.2.5 with no problem, but now all of a sudden when I log in I get the message "Home folder for user 'x' cannot be found in the usual place..."

I have two partitions, a 4 Gb 'OS X' for the system + apps etc, and a 36Gb 'iMac HD' partition for users folders and if I need to boot up in OS9.

I originally used NetInfo Manager to point the users folders to the bigger partition, and they are still pointed there. The partition 'iMac HD' appears to have mounted correctly, and the users home folders are all there, but when any user logs in their /Volumes/iMac HD/UsersX/<name> home folder cannot be found...

Does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on here?

Thanks

Tim

[Gene Jockey]

Originally posted by timpent:
Hi

Last week I upgraded my iMac DV 400 512Mb to 10.2.5 with no problem, but now all of a sudden when I log in I get the message "Home folder for user 'x' cannot be found in the usual place..."

I have two partitions, a 4 Gb 'OS X' for the system + apps etc, and a 36Gb 'iMac HD' partition for users folders and if I need to boot up in OS9.

I originally used NetInfo Manager to point the users folders to the bigger partition, and they are still pointed there. The partition 'iMac HD' appears to have mounted correctly, and the users home folders are all there, but when any user logs in their /Volumes/iMac HD/UsersX/<name> home folder cannot be found...

Does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on here?

Thanks

Tim

Do the command df -k and see what the name of iMac HD is. The volume iMac HD probably didn't unmount correctly at some point, leaving a residual folder in /Volumes. So the next time the Mac started, it mounted "iMac HD" as "iMac HD 1". So NetInfo can't find the folder. Just navigate to /Volumes, and delete the old phantom entry. Then rename iMac HD to something trivial, then back to iMac HD. Check in /Volumes, and it will be iMac HD again, as well as in df listings. Then log out, log back in and all will be well. This happens to me every once in a while on my Beige G3 when it gets hosed.

--Josh

[timpent]

Originally posted by Gene Jockey:
Do the command df -k and see what the name of iMac HD is. The volume iMac HD probably didn't unmount correctly at some point, leaving a residual folder in /Volumes. So the next time the Mac started, it mounted "iMac HD" as "iMac HD 1". So NetInfo can't find the folder. Just navigate to /Volumes, and delete the old phantom entry. Then rename iMac HD to something trivial, then back to iMac HD. Check in /Volumes, and it will be iMac HD again, as well as in df listings. Then log out, log back in and all will be well. This happens to me every once in a while on my Beige G3 when it gets hosed.

--Josh

Hi Josh

Looks like this might be what's happened, but before I go deleting anything I just want to be 100% sure that what I'm deleting is the right thing!

Here's the df -k listing:

[the-Ps-iMac:/volumes] timp% df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s8 4192880 3109200 1041752 74% /
devfs 92 92 0 100% /dev
fdesc 1 1 0 100% /dev
<volfs> 512 512 0 100% /.vol
automount -fstab [387] 0 0 0 100% /Network/Servers
automount -static [387] 0 0 0 100% /automount
/dev/disk0s9 35824952 23978448 11846504 66% /Volumes/iMac HD 1

Here's a ls -l listing:

[the-Ps-iMac:/volumes] timp% ls -l
total 0
drwx------ 3 guest wheel 102 Feb 6 2002 "iMac HD"
drwx------ 3 timp wheel 102 Apr 21 12:04 OS X
drwx------ 3 emilytob wheel 102 Apr 21 11:43 iMac HD
drwxrwxrwx 34 timp unknown 1156 Apr 21 21:12 iMac HD 1
drwx------ 3 emilytob wheel 102 Apr 21 20:44 iMacHD

How can I be sure that I'm deleting the correct one/s?

Presumably I need to:
rm -r "iMac HD"
rm -r iMac HD
rm -r iMacHD

*** How do I deal with quotes and spaces? ***

then how to I rename iMac HD 1, which I believe is the correct one (I think)...

Thanks and sorry about all the questions!

Tim

[Gene Jockey]

Originally posted by timpent:
*** How do I deal with quotes and spaces? ***

then how to I rename iMac HD 1, which I believe is the correct one (I think)...

Thanks and sorry about all the questions!

Tim

No prob. Yep, from what you posted, looks like same old thing that happens to me. The way to do this that will be best for you to avoid any accidental muck ups:

Eject the disk "iMac HD" from the desktop using the Finder. This will unmount it, and you'll have no chance of accidentally doing something bad.

So a listing now of /Volumes will just show the variations on iMac HD as being "mounted". In reality they're just folders you can erase. You can go navigate inside to prove to yourself that they're more or less empty, they'll maybe just have a Users/username/Library that was created when the whole "home folder can not be found" thing happened.

Now, in the folder /Volumes, execute

sudo \rm -r iMac\ HD
sudo \rm -r \"iMac\ HD\"
sudo \rm -r iMacHD

You can use a backslash to escape the space or just hit tab after typing iMa and the shell will fill it in.

Once the offending folders are gone, the next time your iMac HD is mounted it will be mounted with the proper name, and the path to your home dir will work again.

To remount the drive, just re-boot the Mac. When it comes up after re-booting all should be well. This is a long way to do it, but safest if you're not entirely comfortable in terminal country.

--Josh

[timpent]

Josh

Thanks again, it's all sorted now! Couldn't unmount iMac HD - it said it was in use - but did the rm -r in any case. Rebooted, and it all came back up fine. Thanks for reminding me about using backslashes...

Best wishes

Tim