wanting the old hard drive

[jepinto]

Recently upgraded to 30g hard drive.  Due to the trayloading CD in the 333 iMac being persnikity, I copied, using Retrospect, the entire "old" drive contents to the new hard drive.

Certain applications, Netscape and Internet Explorer particularly, when starting up throw up a dialog box, "please insert "old" drive".

Sandbox suggested changing the old to a new name and renaming the new to the same name as the old.  Seemed to work once.

The dialog box knew I did that, 'cause now it asks for the "old" but asks for it with the changed name.

The old is now in a USB enclosure and accessible, but I want to break up the relationship.  He's old, I'm contrary, he says po-ta-to, I say poh-tah-toh, how do I call the whole thing off?

[ljocampo]

When I had a problem like that, I ran Disk Warrior 3 and it relinked the files properly with the new directory rebuild.  I have never had that problem again.

[kelly]

Some of this may be do to old Aliases.

You can Delete them or fix them.

Mac OS 9: About Aliases

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50641

Have you Rebuilt the Desktop yet?

Mac OS: Rebuilding Desktop File and Icon Recovery

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=10182

[kbeartx]

IAWKelly

IME, some aliases are absolute, while others seem to be relative.

That is, certain aliases continue to 'point' to their originals, even after you rename the HD they reside on, while others become 'hoplessly lost' if you rename the HD, or even the folder, inside which the original lives.

I do not know why some behave one way and others act differently.

But I concur with Der Searchmeister that this is the likely cause of your Mac's periodic requests for its 'old disk'.

IMO, once you delete, replace, and  / or 'fix' the errant aliases, your 'old disk' yearnings will cease.

 - kbeartx

[ljocampo]

kbeartx:

[I do not know why some behave one way and others act differently.]

Answer:  [some aliases are absolute, while others seem to be relative.]

You answered your own question.  Any file with absolute addressing is hard wired to that file path right back to root of the named drive.  Change the drive's name and you brake the absolute path to root of drive (name).  If the file is addressed relatively, then that files path is relative to its placement on the drive and not to root, so the name of the drive doesn't matter.

Most aliases that you create are addressed with a relative path unless you span different drives.  Many aliases that are created by the system or an installer are addressed with an absolute file path to the named drive.  Under OS 9, this didn't matter much because it was mostly single user, but OS X will not play along because of its multi-user permission.

[jepinto]

Rebuilding the desktop didn't do it.

It's consistent, though.  Netscape calls for the old hard drive 8 times.  Checking in the profile, these
bookmarks.html
cookies.txt
history.dat
localstore.rdf
panacea.dat
parent.lock
prefs.bak
prefs.js
are the 8 files changed at start of NS time.

Disk Warrior 1.1 didn't do it.  Zapped the PRAM for good measure too.

[kelly]

Did you Delete the Desktop Files? TechTool?

Do you have your Browser downloads and such set to new Drive?

[sandbox]

Jen do you have Spring Cleaning? it has a alias fix option in it.

[ljocampo]

Because of the files you mention, I'd say Netscape can't find your Identity user folder.  Create I new account and then replace the new with your old files in the new identity folder.

[jepinto]

I think, I think, I think we've broken up.

It appears it was the .msf files in Documents>Mozilla>Profiles>Me/gobbelygook.slt/Mail/identity folders

I trashed all of them, and NS no longer calls for the old hard drive.