First of all, sorry for this being a long post, but it's kind of complicated to explain this problem. Thanks for your patience!
I have an FP iMac with an external Firewire HD (Iogear ION 160GB HD). I'm running Mac OSX 10.3.8. I have set things up so that each user's Home folder is on the external HD. Normally this works great, and we all have more HD space than we would with the internal drive. However, sometimes the external HD "burps" and loses its connection to the iMac. Sometimes it even seems to turn itself off. (These things seem to happen mainly when my teenage children are using it, of course!) BTW, these episodes seem to happen most often when multiple people are logged in, but that's not the only time. After one of these episodes, we're always able to get the external HD remounted again by restarting it. However there is a nasty side effect. When the external HD comes on again, it is mounted as "Ion HD 1" in /Volumes, instead of being remounted as "Ion HD," its normal name. And the old "Ion HD" folder in /Volumes becomes empty. All of our Home folders are now on "Ion HD 1," not "Ion HD." But the iMac thinks we should have our Home folders on "Ion HD," so when we log in and it can't find them there, it creates a new Home folder on "Ion HD," and it looks like all the user's data is blown away. I can fix that by going into Terminal, logging in as su, cd /Vol*, rm -r Ion\ HD, and mv Ion\ HD\ 1 Ion\ HD. That recovers everyone's data and life is good again. But it is a pain to do that once or twice a week. So I'm wondering if there is anything I could set up differently so I still have the Home folders on the external HD, but avoid this problem. Is there a way to force external HD to remount as "Ion HD" instead of "Ion HD 1" after it burps? Would a different external HD be less prone to these burps? (I'm not crazy about this solution, of course, since it means shelling out more $$.) Thanks in advance for any suggestions. Mike -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
