Thread: Hide Your Boot Drive

One feature I liked about the EFI-X was that it didn't show up as a Volume on my desktop. Sure, you can change settings in Finder so that NO Volumes show up on your Desktop, but I like having my other disks available there.

So, I figured out a way to make your USB Chameleon stick be invisible.
(However, I believe the following tip only works if you have XCode installed)

To make it invisible, open the terminal and log in as root user. Then type:

Code:

SetFile -a V /Volumes/USBNAME

obviously replacing "USBNAME" with the name of your USB Volume.

To see the changes, you will need to restart the Finder. The easiest way is in Terminal with:

Code:

killall Finder

The files will still be accessible through Volumes/ via an Alias.

If you want to make it visible again, simply repeat the process, this time using a small v to turn it off, like so:

Code:

SetFile -a v /Volumes/USBNAME

Again, restart the Finder for it to take affect.

Alternately, if you don't have XTools, you can use the following two commands, just like the ones above:

To hide:

Code:

chflags hidden /Volumes/USBNAME

To un-hide:

Code:

chflags nohidden /Volumes/USBNAME

Again, restart the finder after applying either of the above commands.

If the second set of commands work for everyone, why did I make it more confusing by giving two different options? Good question! I don't really know what the advantages of using one or the other are, so take your pick!

Also, I picked up a USB header to USB female adapter at NewEgg, which lets me have my Chameleon Boot Stick attached directly to the mobo, just like the EFIX. (except, it is much slimmer, and does not block the other headers)



The only one they had available had two female ports on it, which I suppose could be handy, but I would like to locate or build an even slimmer one that only has a single female port on it, pointing straight up. I can't really track anything down like this, but it sure would be easy to manufacture... I am toying with the idea of having a batch made, maybe even having them encased in a protective plastic casing with some kind of cool logo stamped on it.

There is THIS ONE with a cable attached, but I kinda like the idea of just having it go straight on the mobo.

There is yet another trick. But it will work to hide individual files and folders.

In the root of the USB create a file called .hidden. You will probably need to reveal hidden files in order to do this.

The .hidden file would read:
boot
Extra
Library
usr

Make sure there is NO carriage return after the last item on the list.

The one advantage about this method is that it also hides these files in Linux. I use Ubuntu as well, and this is a nice way of "protecting" these files.

You can select which items you want to hide and reveal with this method.

In Leopard the chflags command is preferred. SetFile and .hidden are deprecated.

Originally Posted by Mike

In Leopard the chflags command is preferred. SetFile and .hidden are deprecated.

Good to know, thanks!

Thanks for this cool tip! I used SetFile on Snow Leopard. Is that okay?

I think I'd rather connect the header for 2 more usb ports, but I found this at provantage.com: Great ideas though!

Many thanks for this solution! The hidden usb-stick was turned to grey in the Finder-sidebar, but diminished completely after a reboot.
And within Pathfinder I´m still having acess to the bootstick. Perfect.

This is great!

I would also like to point out the hot key to "Go to Folder"

Shift + Command + G

type:

/Volumes/[name_of_your_USB_drive]

It's just very convenient...

Isn't it simplest just to eject the USB stick in the Finder (by clicking on the up-arrow to the right of its name). You don't need to remove it physically. Then it's out of the way until your next reboot, or until you intentionally remount it using, eg, Disk Util.

BTW, that second USB port on the internal USB extender (great idea) would be perfect for a Bluetooth dongle, wouldn't it?